Question related to planting tanks already in their cycle...

[M0oN]

Here's a somewhat perplexing question that I haven't gotten any straight answers to yet from some of the more experienced plant guru's I know...

I was in the process of cycling a tank, the nitrite levels were just beginning to peak, when I planted it heavily...

Now logic told me that while all of the bacteria wouldn't die, a lot of it would get choked off by the plants absorbing ammonia thus speeding up the cycle...

It's been close to 24 hours with no decline in nitrite levels, and I'm worried that I may have stuck my tank in an eternal cycle with the plants removing nitrate before it gets a chance to propogate to a level needed to remove all of the nitrite?

Any thoughts on this?

 

[farm41]

What do you have for lights?

 

[M0oN]

What do you have for lights?

Here's the tank specs...along with a picture of it...

29 gallon bow front
2 55 watt compact flourescent 6800k
eheim pro 2222 canister filter
co2 injection with automated pH monitor
hydor 300 watt inline heater
intake strainer on the eheim
substrate consists of a base layer of sand, flourite and peat mixed thoroughly, a second layer of pure flourite and a top layer of small gravel.

http://www.fish-forum.com/images/upload/np.jpg
http://www.fish-forum.com/images/upload/np1.jpg

This is my first attempt ever at a planted tank, I've never dealt with plants in any form before...

What are you opinions on the cycle? All logic tells me it should complete sooner or later, but just to help it along I've added some BioSpira to the tank...

 

[M0oN]

Also note that this is going to be the home for my apistogramma panduro, I know it's heavily planted but I've spaced out the plants so that there is ample swimming room between them underneath the cover...what do you think about this? Will it make the apisto's pretty happy for the rest of their days?

This is also where all them malaysian trumpet snails you sent me are going

 

[farm41]

I am not positive, but I think plants don't use nitrite, I know they use Ammonia and nitrate. The good news is, they will use any ammonia that is being produced. A couple water changes should get the nitrite in order.

When plants and lights are added in the begining, I don't see any nitrite at all. I think by adding mid-cycle, you are going to have to tough it out a little.

Wish I new you were starting a planted tank when I sent that box of snails, could have thrown in a couple nice plants just for the fun of it. I have some real nice red flame and red ozelot sword plantlets, and lots of stem plants.

 

[M0oN]

I am not positive, but I think plants don't use nitrite, I know they use Ammonia and nitrate. The good news is, they will use any ammonia that is being produced. A couple water changes should get the nitrite in order.

When plants and lights are added in the begining, I don't see any nitrite at all. I think by adding mid-cycle, you are going to have to tough it out a little.

Wish I new you were starting a planted tank when I sent that box of snails, could have thrown in a couple nice plants just for the fun of it. I have some real nice red flame and red ozelot sword plantlets, and lots of stem plants.

That's a shame, a sword behind the sunset hygro would be a really good addition, I might have to send you more shipping money if you've got a few freebies, but I'm really stretched for any space in the tank, as you can tell, it's getting cramped in there.

Do you have any pictures of your plants, they don't necessarily have to be YOUR plants, but you know what I mean...

How does the tank look for a first try?

 

[farm41]

You're not even close to being cramped yet, just wait till it grows in.

Take a look at my pics some pics of the flames and ozelots, a few other things, not to organized though.

 

[M0oN]

Nice pictures in there.

I know it's not cramped yet, but considering the plants in there, red cabomba, sunset hygro, red ludwiga, water sprite and a few unidentifieds. On top of the co2 injected waters, it'll be cramped soon enough

 

[2la]

Did we actually change our policy on posting pictures? The images are awfully large and necessitate horizontal scrolling, which is really saying something given that my resolution is set at 1280 pixels across! 8O Could you perhaps edit them down to a more manageable size, say, no more than 640 pixels across? Thanks!

I'm worried that I may have stuck my tank in an eternal cycle with the plants removing nitrate before it gets a chance to propogate to a level needed to remove all of the nitrite?

Nitrate levels have no bearing on the levels of nitrites, their predecessors. (It's the opposite.)

In any case, plants almost always help out the cycle. Whether they compete with bacteria for ammonia (or nitrates) is irrelevant: In all planted tanks there will be competition between them--your plants become part of the 'biofilter' in addition to the bacteria, and there will be a balance between them when the tank finally (and continually) matures. They should have no impact on the bacterial population that oxidizes nitrites. If there are nitrites present, the bacteria will develop in time.

In your case, MOoN, I have a very, very hard time believing that the level of competition between your plants and your bacteria is very high at all, and here's why: I don't see any evidence of pearling action whatsoever, meaning that the plants aren't photosynthesizing at any rate that would appreciably lower the amount of ammonia available to the bacteria. The plants look freshly planted and probably are drawing largely upon their own internal energy reserves to facilitate the adaption process from emersed to submersed life.

Nitrite-oxidizers can take some time to develop--by comparison 24 hours is practically no time at all! See this rough timescale of the nitrogen cycle in a nonplanted situation:

Note that some of the timing as depicted in the diagram is based on prior assumptions that Nitrobacter species were the primary nitrite oxidizers in freshwater aquarium, which has since been disproven (it's actually Nitrospira species). This is relevant because Nitrobacter cannot propagate in the presence of ammonia, so it was assumed that ammonia levels would need to decrease to near zero levels before the nitrite oxidizers could populate the tank. To my knowledge, this inhibition has not been proven to be a factor in the proliferation of Nitrospira. What this means is that ammonia levels can be elevated along with nitrite levels and potentially nitrate levels as well. Any drop in ammonia in a nonplanted tank must be accompanied by a concurrent rise in nitrite, since one ammonia molecule disappears when it is converted to nitrite. Because of this, in fact, the already empirically incorrect 'observation' that ammonia levels must approach zero before nitrite levels can rise is doubly flawed because the profileration of the nitrite oxidizers would be indicated by a rise in the level of nitrate (since nitrite oxidizers convert nitrite to nitrate), not nitrite! In other words, if Nitrobacter was indeed the genus present in aquariums and responsible for the conversion of nitrite to nitrate, then it would be nitrATE levels that would not rise until all of the ammonia--being an inhibitor of Nitrobacter growth--disappeared. Nitrite should rise proportionately to the fall of ammonia, meaning the two compounds would coexist for a time.

But I digress, and I apologize for that. My point in providing the graph above was to show that, despite the aforementioned caveats, it is a fairly accurate depiction of how long nitrite levels can persist until they start to decline. Adding Bio-SPIRA should help speed up the cycle, by all accounts. But planting your tank even mid-cycle should not slow it down in any way. Once they're displaying submersed growth, the plants become instant biological filtration media.

My apologies for the long-windedness, and my accolades to those who managed to read all that!

Regards,

2la

 

[M0oN]

I'm quite familiar with the cycle of a tank, for some reason I must be coming off the wrong way to people or making comments that are confusing them.

You can remove the picture if you like, unfortuantely my camera's an ancient peice of junk and won't resize to any other manageable formats.

A nitrite test today showed that in 24 hours of having the plants int he tank the levels have gone from 3.0 ppm to .50 ppm...I'm very pleased with this as I was worried I might have to be scooping some dead fish out of the tank.

On another note, I introduced two very large davidsansi cory cats to the tank from our regular tap water (pH of 7.6) to the planted tank (pH of 6.2) using the drip method. I dripped water at about 2 drops per second into a bucket full of the water they were used to over 1 hours time and they still seem to be having trouble. (I lost 10 rummynose and a golden honey gourami overnight :? ).

I thought they were dead this morning as they were laying at odd angles on plants (standing upright, but now that I think about it it was somewhat normal for the position of the plants they were on) and when I touched them they very slowly swam away from me.

I'm hoping that since it's been 24 hours they'll start to come around as they're still alive, but what are your thoughts on it? Is there anythign I can do to help? Perhaps I'm depriving them of oxygen overnight? (my kH is 9 and I'm injecting co2 to lower the pH from 7.8 or so to 6.2 in the tank).

Any thoughts on this?

 

[2la]

MOoN, my long-winded explanation following the graph was provided as much for others as it was for you, in case you didn't need it. But if you're going on the assumption that nitrite levels would decrease after introducing live, nonadapted plants, I think it was reasonable for me to assume in turn that there was something you may have been confused about concerning plants and cycling. My apologies if you found it condescending in any way--I was just trying to provide as complete an explanation as possible. In any case, the decline in nitrite you're experiencing currently is highly unlikely to be related to the introduction of the plants, accounting, of course, for any nitrite-oxidizers that may have hitchhiked in along with the plants.

The loss of your rummynoses and honey gourami really shouldn't be all that big of a mystery. A cycling tank is a stressful environment for all fish, particularly ones such as these that aren't particularly of the ilk to withstand a cycle. Danios or mollies or black skirt tetras might have fared better, but not the two aforementioned species. I'm also unsure why you added the cories when your tank hasn't yet finished cycling? At a nitrite level of 0.50ppm they should be able to make it, but I'm not sure that's giving them the best chance at survival. At least an extra day would have helped, particularly in light of the recent precipitous fall in nitrite and very recent die off. Mind you, I'm not trying to attack what you're doing or anything, just inquiring as to why.

As for your pictures, you can download a free, streamlined, and very convenient image editor at Download.com. Go there and search for IrfanView. Great program!

Regards,

2la

 

[M0oN]

2la, they weren't condescending, I just got replies on the cycleing process from 8 different board moderators where I posted this question hehe.

I was worried about the nitrite being there for good because of the plants taking in ammonium and nitrate, not giving any other bacteria enough time to establish and break it down...

I did some reading on co2 injection and found out I had about 120 ppm of co2 in my tank, which is probably why the fish died during acclimation...I've raised the levels so that the pH reads around 7.0 rather then 6.2...

Still a lot to learn as far as high tech planted tanks go, but I'm getting there

 

[2la]

Ah! Good catch on the CO2 overdose--all the more likely given that they died overnight (but I don't think the cycling's helping, either, of course). To avoid any further stress you may even want to turn down the CO2 to suboptimal levels until you start to see evidence of pearling.

 

[M0oN]

Actually, the cabomba and red ludwigia are already showing a lot of pearling, in fact the ludwigia has dime sized bubbles between certain leaves that will get loose every so often, it's pretty dazzling to watch.

My nitrite's are now at zero...the plants must have settled in pretty quickly, because that's a major swing in such a short time...everything in the tank seems to be optimal now and it hsould only be a few more months before I add my apistogramma panduro

 

[2la]

Did I mention that your plants aren't affecting the nitrite levels?

Anyways, congratulations on getting your nitrites down. That's always the hardest part to wait out. Thank goodness for instant cycling (once you have one matured tank already set up)!

 

[M0oN]

Did I mention that your plants aren't affecting the nitrite levels?

Anyways, congratulations on getting your nitrites down. That's always the hardest part to wait out. Thank goodness for instant cycling (once you have one matured tank already set up)!

I would disagree on that, since they're taking in the ammonium before the bacteria can break it down into nitrite all of them bacteria needed to break down ammonium (that create nitrite) are probably dying back quite a bit...just my two cents, though.

I've already got a ton of established tanks throughout the house, you should see my discus tank

I hate gett'n into new things when I've been in the hobby so damn long, makes me feel like an idiot :lol:

I'll post some pics of the tank when the panduro are dropped in, probably won't be for a while.

 

[jerseyjay]

M0on,

I can finally give something back for fishroom tips.

First off planted tanks and especially heavy planted tanks w/ high tech equipment are another separate beast. You would be surprised how many people with years of experience with fish, fish breeding and overall aquatic knowledge, fail just because they THINK they know how to do it.

I have been involved with planted tanks for 15 years now and trust me, there is still a lot to learn.

If you want to start a heavy planted tank w/ CO2, daily fertilization and high light, then I would suggest taking notes and listening to those who have experience with it instead of those who have GENERAL knowledge about fish hobby (*Planted tank - different game). Perfect example would be 2la. We both go few years back and had a pleasure to mod on various planted forums.

Planted Tanks and the "Silent Cycle"

Ammonia and Nitrite kits are usually useful when cycling a tank. However, if your tank is heavily planted, the chances are you won't see an ammonia or nitrite spike if you track these parameters when cycling. In fact, the only indication that your tank has cycled may be the appearance of nitrates. Even then you may not get a reading: heavily planted tanks with a light to moderate fish load often test zero nitrates, since the plants take up some of the ammonia before the bacteria convert it, plus most plant species can back-convert both nitrite and nitrate to ammonia (ammonium). If you let a large plant load get established for a week or two in your new setup, it's usually safe start to add groups of fish in weekly increments, but testing for zero ammonia and nitrite first is always a good idea. Remember to put in some fish food while your plant are getting established so they and the beneficial bacteria have some nitrogenous waste for food. In addition to planting heavily, it's wise to start out with a nice percentage of stem plants, which, growing fast, consume more nutrients (fish waste). Once your tank is well-established and in balance, you can start to replace some of the stem plants with slower-growing, rooted ones (if you like).

 

[M0oN]

Point taken, I didn't mean any offense in disagreeing with you 2la.

Jay, it seems that I've got my bases covered as far as your advice goes, I spent the past 2 or 3 years researching planted tanks here and there and did a lot of heavy research just before actually diving in.

Here's what I've got:
29 gallon bow front
substrate - base layer of sand, flourite and peat thoroughly mixed, second layer of flourite, top layer of fine gravel.
lighting - 2 50 watt compact flourescent 6800k bulbs
co2 injection with an automatic pH monitor which will turn the regulator on and off to adjust the pH to where it needs to be.

I fertilize with flourish twice a week for now (the tank is very new) and I'll be adding the flourish supplemental tablets to the substrate soon to provide some iron and such to help hte plants get a hold in the tank.

So far everything is looking optimal, my nitrite levels were high before adding the plants, after adding them they've dropped to zero in the span of 72 hours, ammonia is at zero and nitrate is at a level that my test kit isn't sensitive enough to detect.

Plants are showing "pearling" beads of air on the leaves, especially the red cobomba and red ludwigia. Fish are very active and aside from the little mix up I had with too much Co2 being injected itno the tank everything seems fine. The cory cats I spoke of have made a full recovery and are terrorizing the base level of the tank...

I won't be doing anything to do the tank that isn't plant related for the next few months, I understand that establishing an eco system, especially when using plants, in your tank takes up to a year, if not longer.

Thanks for all the suggestions

 

[2la]

I stand corrected, MOoN! Plants do take up nitrite, but I didn't realize the effect would be so profound with rooted plants.

My apologies,

2la

 

[aspen]

if your tank is heavily planted and they are pearling, don't worry about cycling it. plants come loaded with nitrifying bacteria, and they also eat nitrogen in any form they can find it, but prefer ammonia so i've been told.

rick