Deep Seven
Aquarium Advice Addict
My Future Aquarium
They are nice and green
I like the planted tanks so
And thus it begins
Soooo, I've been reading articles all night* trying to find an answer to my question. I'm hoping someone can answer it for me or point me to an article on the subject that does so. I've decided to do a heavily planted aquarium with otos, shrimp, and dwarf puffers. I'm going for a fishless cycle.
My question is should I cycle before or after adding the plants?
I'd like to do the set-up and aqua-scaping, and do all of my planting. Then get the water parameters good for the plants to thrive and start cycling. When cycle stabilizes add shrimp, and otos at a paced rate to avoid overloading the cycle. Then after everything is stable for a while, add the dwarf puffers.
I want to know if cycling hurts the plants and should be done before aqua-scaping, and I want to know if planting the tank first will help or hinder my effort to establish a nitrogen cycle capable of dealing with fish bio-load.
Any help would be apreciated, thanks.
*two and a half hours to be exact
They are nice and green
I like the planted tanks so
And thus it begins
Soooo, I've been reading articles all night* trying to find an answer to my question. I'm hoping someone can answer it for me or point me to an article on the subject that does so. I've decided to do a heavily planted aquarium with otos, shrimp, and dwarf puffers. I'm going for a fishless cycle.
My question is should I cycle before or after adding the plants?
I'd like to do the set-up and aqua-scaping, and do all of my planting. Then get the water parameters good for the plants to thrive and start cycling. When cycle stabilizes add shrimp, and otos at a paced rate to avoid overloading the cycle. Then after everything is stable for a while, add the dwarf puffers.
I want to know if cycling hurts the plants and should be done before aqua-scaping, and I want to know if planting the tank first will help or hinder my effort to establish a nitrogen cycle capable of dealing with fish bio-load.
Any help would be apreciated, thanks.
*two and a half hours to be exact