Questions About Cycling

[SpencerG]

Hey, guys! Sorry in advance for how wordy this is! Any help is much appreciated!

I'm fishless cycling a fluval spec 5gal that I plan to plant. Started dosing ammonia last night. Got ammonia up to 4ppm today, and tonight I got my Eco-Complete in the mail. So I added that stuff.

Honestly, the Eco was an impulse buy. Because I plan to plant this tank, I was looking for a popular substrate and went with Eco-Complete. (I'm new to the Hobby!)

Now, after adding it, I'm wondering how it'll affect my cycling process as far as what levels to expect and when to expect them and what's going on in my tank. I also plan to include the plants prior to the cycle being finished, and I'm not sure how plants affect the cycling process.

In a lot of forums, there's some confusing information about what a cycled tank means and how plants affect the cycle. I've seen a lot of people online claim that adding a ton of plants to a tank will "cycle" the tank... somehow. I assume they mean that adding a bunch of plants to a tank will "cycle" the tank because the plants will be able to handle the fish waste. However, that's not what I understand cycling to be. Maybe I'm confused??


OKAY, HERE'S THE QUESTION PART:

-Assuming my goal is to have a complete, biofilter cycled and colonized with good bacteria, how do Eco-Complete and plants play a role in the cycling *process*?
-How do plants affect the timing and steps involved in fishless cycling with Ammonia?

Also,
-Could I essentially just keep dosing up ammonia until I find that added ammonia consistently converts to nitrAtes? Would that mean my tank is cycled? Or would having plants in the tank confuse/complicate things?

-If I have plants in my tank while it is still cycling, how will I know that I have colonized the bacteria that I need and successfully cycled my tank?

Hope I've made some sense! Thanks a lot!

 

[Delapool]

Quickly found some articles I need to look through better myself. My experience is that you need a very heavily planted, established tank to get nitrates coming close to say 5ppm.


I would agree that adding plants won't cycle a tank and establish the bio-filter.


https://www.theaquariumwiki.com/Plants_and_Biological_Filtration


Aquatic Plants and the Nitrogen Cycle | DrTim's Aquatics

 

[Mcfly]

What you might know: Bio-filtration is dependent upon two types of nitrifying bacteria populating the tank. The 1st ammonia eats ammonia and poops nitrites, the 2nd type eats nitrites and poops nitrates. The cycle is shown during water testing, when ammonia levels rise, then fall then nitrite levels rise then fall, leaving nitrates.

Plants.... they like nitrogen, it's a primary ingredient in fertilizer ... it's found in nitrates and nitrites... Planted tank substrate contains bacteria that produces nitrogen...
This substrate is adding bacteria.... this will effect the cycle , as opposed to not adding any bacteria, and letting the cycle complete unfettered. The fact that plants are removing nitrogen during the cycle also effects the cycle itself.

So both plants, and eco-complete will effect the nitrogen cycle... How, is dependent on many variables, so it's difficult to say from case to case.

It's always been my practice to cycle with fish in. The filter is FOR fish... it makes sense. I only do weekly 20% water changes during the cycle, and test the water two/three times a week... it's always worked, and I never lost fish during cycling. Fishless cycling is an art I never tried, or understood, so I'm little help to you with that.