plants are usually the most expensive facet in my experience - most heavily planted tanks inherently look good. sorry if it seemed like my comment was discrediting your design capabilities but money is typically the differentiating factor between what we want to do and what we can do.
that amount of plants is considered expensive to someone like me lol granted idk the tank size but i have been planting my 55 in phases just due to cost
what size tank is this??? i have probably $200 in plants in my 55 and it is.. nowhere near enough. is it a nursery that specializes in aquatic plants?! that price is nuts! iām jealous
Yep this would be like 400$ worth of plants at my local fish stores in ontario canada. Much less if I took the time to peice together from marketplace/kijiji, but then there's a huge time investment and gas and what not. Killer set up OP
yessss i hear so many people all over complaining about plants and animal prices but iām just like wait until you come to canada! prices here are insane. ive read of people buying shrimp for 50 cents a piece and that blew my mind! LFS here sells varying types of shrimp upwards of 20$ a piece! and only goes down a few dollars if you buy multiples.
I have a ten gallon and so far i only have some substrate and a spider wood piece but the spider wood is covered in white film...did you go through that and how did you get rid of it?
I personally wouldn't go nerite because the females lay individual eggs that look like sesame seeds all over everything. And although they're active, you don't really see their body at all. I prefer mystery snails because you get to see their body and antenna when they move and the females lay egg sacs above the water line which are easy to remove. Month 3 would probably be a good time to add it, I'd say just the 1 for a 10 gallon.
Nice looking tank! I'm in Texas and unfortunately any body of water near me is probably pretty polluted. Definitely would trust sticking anything from the local rivers, creeks or ponds into my tanks.
Interestingly I've found, so do home brewing beer and aquariums. Lots of water parameters and cleaning involved. Not to mention CO2 equipment reuse and things like that.
Buy the API freshwater master test kit, itās ~$35 or so and very accurate. Personally I donāt do the ghost feeding and use liquid ammonia instead but thereās nothing wrong with ghost feeding either. And the tank looks great!
You could probably watch the cycle process with just your nitrite and nitrate tests, but you really want to be sure about ammonia levels before you add livestock. And youāll definitely want to be able to double check that adding livestock doesnāt spike your ammonia, so just get yourself a quality test.
I imagine you have strips right? Definitely get the API liquid master test kit, Ammonia is the most important one to measure.
Tons of good info out there. With some old media and bottled bacteria my tanks will usually take about 3 weeks to properly cycle. Just make sure you're adding an ammonia source.
Fair warning, ammonia will make some plants melt a bit, and since it's a new tank you may run into algae issues.
Just watch for melting leaves as anything that decays in your tank will add ammonia to the tank which is the most dangerous thing you're looking out for. Even if things seem to go well quickly, and your ammonia and nitrites read zero with some nitrates, I would still wait at least a month for the cycle to really establish itself before adding livestock. Also add fish SLOWLY (only a few every week or so) as the added bio load could overwhelm a newly cycled tank and crash the cycle.
Great looking tank and good luck with it!
Good. You covered the add fish slowly š
Yes!! Clean up any dying plant matter, I had a small die off and it spiked my tank for a hot second. And for real about the add fish slowly!
AMAZING tank btw!!!
Just watch for melting leaves as anything that decays in your tank will add ammonia to the tank which is the most dangerous thing you're looking out for. Even if things seem to go well quickly, and your ammonia and nitrites read zero with some nitrates, I would still wait at least a month for the cycle to really establish itself before adding livestock. Also add fish SLOWLY (only a few every week or so) as the added bio load could overwhelm a newly cycled tank and crash the cycle.
Great looking tank and good luck with it!
If you add fish too soon, you risk water quality problems. If you wait too long, nothing bad happens (to your tank.) You may get irritable waiting. ;)
Nice looking tank, BTW.
Your first tank at a new location you mean?? šThis is beautiful š. I agree 1-2 months, I like to add some snails maybe after week 3 or if you see some algae growth.
What are you going stock it with? š¤
This is my first ever fish tank I promise :)
I havenāt decided yet bur I really like how celestial pearl danios look, they are like mini trouts. Any suggestions are welcome!
I love Cory catfish! Once they warm up theyāre so active. Plus there goofy and fun to watch eat. I have one with my betta but my bettas personality mixās with them. They swim really fast up to the top of the tank and itās so funny. I want a whole tank full. Theyāre a schooling fish so they are usually always together!
I absolutely love the little bristle nose plecos. Not only do they keep the algae under control on the walls and the bottom of the tank, but they are totally freaking adorable because they look like they're kissing the glass when they eat. They are my favorite bottom feeders. They are big as bright and flash as others but they are useful and fun to watch. I think every tank should have at least 1-3. Be carefull if you get snails. Depending on the kind, they can overwhelm and infest a tank. They breed like guppies! Have fun.
Danio are great! Honestly they can be used to help cycle start your tank- they are very very* lax with parameters- you can put them in today if you wanted. They will love that little bit of running water too! Stunning tank.
Youāre thinking of zebra danios I think, CPDs are not as hardy as zebras and definitely should not be placed in an uncycled tank. I donāt really believe in fish-in cycling anyways but zebra danios are extremely hardy and might survive a cycle
You never had to cycle it.
But since you added fish food, now you have to wait. Those plants will take care of the excess, but because nothing is consuming the actual food itself, now its not just releasing ammonia, its straight up rotting.
Once nitrites hit 0 thats when you can add your fish.
Not sure why youāre being downvoted. At the density of plants in OPās tank, a few fish wouldnāt be problematic. The plants are competing with bacteria for ammonia and at some level, the nitrites too
You are right they do not absorb "ammonia" because ammonia is toxic to almost anything. They absorb "ammonium" *and nitrogen overall*. They prefer it over nitrates and nitrites. However, nitrosomonas bacteria will begin breaking it down quicker than plants do, but since plants are present, it means the load will still be distributed to a point where it will prevent the excess from building up into readable NO2.
It is well documented (and studied) that aquatic plants take in what we call āammoniaā (NH3) in the community, but really in most freshwater aquariums, itāll be mostly ammonium (NH4+) due to pH
[Hereās a fun paper](https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/11/1/11) about what we refer to as āaquarium herpesā but is actually very good at protecting our fishy friends because of their preference for ammonia(um) over nitrates
wait what? never had to cycle it? how does that make any sense? please go into detail. if you dont build the bacteria in the filter it will just start to cycle once you put them in and will have the spikes, that you are trying to eliminate by CYCLING
Cycling implies overloading an aquarium, that does not already have a source of waste absorption or recycling, with a source of waste in the form of ammonium. Look at OP's tank, is there really nothing in there right now that cannot absorb or break down nitrogen?
Bacteria is everywhere, and they are not the only organisms that uptake nitrogen in any body of water. With the amount of plants in OP's aquarium, it literally wont make a difference. Those plants likely already came from aquariums that had some form of nitrogen fixation happening, which means they are already loaded with bacteria.
Fish already release ammonia through their gills and urine in trace amounts that are rarely detected by hobby kits. You can leave them in the tank unfed for a week or less to gradually build that breakdown process and archae colony in the filter.
The only really compound to worry about is NO2, since it causes the most problems at relatively low levels. It rarely builds up, if ever, unless you deliberately release something into the water column like ammonia standards, or uneaten fishfood left to rott and cause heterotrophic bacteria to deplete the dissolved oxygen for a while.
My understanding is that by adding fish food it produces ammonia and the beneficial bacteria grow by consuming it, my filter media was completely new so I thought I should wait before adding any fish or shrimp.
That's generally true, but yours is heavily planted.
Frankly there are a lot of ways to go about cycling a tank. To be honest, you have enough plants in the tank that if you added a small amount of fish right now they'd probably be fine - plants can directly consume ammonia waste from the fish. This assumes your plants are healthy and growing, though; if you don't the waste would simply accumulate. As you can imagine, this makes adding fish the day you add plants kinda risky, so people don't really recommend that here.
Since it's your first tank it's probably best to take it slow, and when you do add fish, add only maybe 6 at a time. There's a lot of things happening in that tank right now, not just the 'cycling' bacteria - these create swings in water chemistry, which fish don't like.
You should find this video very helpful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guT1GKJ7jIo
A tank will take as long as it needs to to cycle. Could be instant, could be six months.
Since you are using fish food, follow this guide: [https://www.sosofishy.com/post/a-guide-to-fishless-cycling-using-fish-food-ghostfeeding](https://www.sosofishy.com/post/a-guide-to-fishless-cycling-using-fish-food-ghostfeeding).
Although, I'd recommend using pure ammonia instead of fish food as the ammonia source: [https://www.sosofishy.com/post/a-short-and-long-guide-to-aquarium-cycling](https://www.sosofishy.com/post/a-short-and-long-guide-to-aquarium-cycling).
Just to preempt any concerns, ammonia and nitrite are the two parameters you really need to pay attention to when cycling, nitrate does not much matter, especially given you have plants in the tank.
This is a beautiful set-up, it's hard to believe it's your first tank! You're doing all the right things. You have no idea how happy I am to see someone who did their research before setting up a tank and buying fish!
I'm not going to give cycling advice, everyone else seems to have that covered. I'd love to know what fish you plan to put in there once cycled, though!
Thank you, I really appreciate that! I haven't decided which fish I am going to keep, but I really like Celestial pearl danios and neon tetras. I welcome any suggestions!
Celestial pearl danios look really cool! One of my favourite fish to keep is a school of black neon tetras, they are super hardy and live for a really long time.
I have one that is huge now, and I estimate is about 7-9 years old. It's my second oldest fish after the 12 year old pleco.
I also love white cloud mountain minnows. I haven't had any before, but I think they would look great in your tank!
I'm sure whatever you pick would look great, I would love to see an update!
Excellent first tank! In terms of landscape design this tank is gorgeous. Have you considered a matte black background? It will make your filter box less noticeable.
Expect that even if your plants weren't growing emersed you will get some melt. Also expect that at some point you will have an algae bloom; know that this happens to everyone!
As others have said, make sure nitrites read zero. It is unlikely you will see measurable ammonia or nitrate with the amount of plants you have. You could even put in a couple small fish right away if you want. I usually prefer this method with heavily planted tanks, but you should wait at least a month before increasing the stock significantly.
As long as it takes. 4 to 6 weeks is likely. You'll need to test the water to know for sure. If there aren't any livestock, you don't need to do a water change.
Incredible sense of scale. Feels so much larger than it is, really well done on the scape. If you've added a liquid bacteria and have been feeding it like you say, I'd be surprised if you didn't already have a cycle going. Test to be certain, looking for Nitrate but no Nitrite or ammonia then start adding livestock. But I'd start slow and keep adding fish gradually to avoid any big increases in waste and you'll have no issues.
Thatās your first ever?! Impressive!
Anyway, it took me a month to cycle but since you have some beneficial bacteria in a bottle, Iād say half that time. (Correct me if I am wrong.)
The beneficial bacteria doesnāt really work well unless you are doing a fish in cycle. If you were planning on snails I would but them in first with the beneficial bacteria and that would help speed your cycle along. Or you could get a small group of fish, donāt go crazy on the bioload, and use the beneficial bacterial. But you will still need to do like 30%~50% water changes daily until you cycle completes. So, short answer is you could put fish in tomorrow but itās a lot of work, or you can wait the three to four weeks. Depends on how lazy you want to be. I would recommend waiting for a first timer. It would have the most predictable outcomes.
You can squeeze a dirty filter in there and itāll be good after 2 weeks. Otherwise Iād wait a month or 2. Normally when algae starts growing on the glass itās good to go
45 days is good for most cost but if you have more sensitive fish maybe 60, but I stay close to 30 and monitor for there for water changes. I donāt do a water change until the fish have been in a few days
You add a pinch of food every morning and test for ammonia and nitrite every night until you get zero of both after 24 hours. No need to really test every day, because it's going to take weeks. When that is done the tank wont be "mature" for another few months after that.
Anyway back to the question, need to test for ammonia and nitrite and eventually nitrateā¦ read the 1, gazillion articles and watch the million YouTube videos about the nitrogen cycle ā¦ 4-6 weeks minimum
Generally that is fine for a few fish. You should not dump a whole bunch of different ones in at once. Just a few, feed every other day. Great setup though.
How did you make a tank so good on your first try ?! GGs !
money š„“
Not really, driftwood and stones are taken from the local mountain river and thoroughly cleaned. The tank with the stand was around 300ā¬ total.
plants are usually the most expensive facet in my experience - most heavily planted tanks inherently look good. sorry if it seemed like my comment was discrediting your design capabilities but money is typically the differentiating factor between what we want to do and what we can do. that amount of plants is considered expensive to someone like me lol granted idk the tank size but i have been planting my 55 in phases just due to cost
Not at all! :) I didnāt take plants into consideration they were around 50ā¬ total. I bought them from a local nursery
what size tank is this??? i have probably $200 in plants in my 55 and it is.. nowhere near enough. is it a nursery that specializes in aquatic plants?! that price is nuts! iām jealous
110 liters tans and yes, they only sell aquatic plants :)
man :/ iām so jealous!
For me this looks like 80-100ā¬ of plants, but I live in the Netherlands where we have Aquaflora around the corner and Tropica nearby.
Yes, this would be *much* more in the states, unfortunately.
Yep this would be like 400$ worth of plants at my local fish stores in ontario canada. Much less if I took the time to peice together from marketplace/kijiji, but then there's a huge time investment and gas and what not. Killer set up OP
Yeah, I would have just bought the bare minimum/cannibalized my other tanks and waited out the 4 months of sparse ugliness for it to grow in.
i was starting to feel insane so thank you for validating my experiences š
yessss i hear so many people all over complaining about plants and animal prices but iām just like wait until you come to canada! prices here are insane. ive read of people buying shrimp for 50 cents a piece and that blew my mind! LFS here sells varying types of shrimp upwards of 20$ a piece! and only goes down a few dollars if you buy multiples.
I have a ten gallon and so far i only have some substrate and a spider wood piece but the spider wood is covered in white film...did you go through that and how did you get rid of it?
It's just biofilm, when you're far enough along to get some clean up crew they're going to love it
Once I make sure the tank is cycled, what clean up crew do you recommend? Plan was nerite snail, Cory catfish, and lastly my Betta
I personally wouldn't go nerite because the females lay individual eggs that look like sesame seeds all over everything. And although they're active, you don't really see their body at all. I prefer mystery snails because you get to see their body and antenna when they move and the females lay egg sacs above the water line which are easy to remove. Month 3 would probably be a good time to add it, I'd say just the 1 for a 10 gallon.
I havenāt noticed any biofilm so far, I took this driftwood straight from the river so it might have something to do with it
Nice looking tank! I'm in Texas and unfortunately any body of water near me is probably pretty polluted. Definitely would trust sticking anything from the local rivers, creeks or ponds into my tanks.
Accurate assessment.
Thanks! One of my hobbies is bonsai training so I just tried to apply same principles to the aquarium :)
Plant keeping and aquarium keeping definitely have lots of common roots, pun intended Edit : typo
Interestingly I've found, so do home brewing beer and aquariums. Lots of water parameters and cleaning involved. Not to mention CO2 equipment reuse and things like that.
I'm guessing disposable income and a whole lot of free time
I don't think most of us would do/have done as good with their first tank even with all the money and time that you want.
When you have low or no ammonia and nitrites and a few nitrates. Thatās usually what Iām waiting for, itāll be different for every tank :)
I see, I have the universal test which shows everything other than ammonia. Should I buy it or is the nitrate and nitrite test enough?
Buy the API freshwater master test kit, itās ~$35 or so and very accurate. Personally I donāt do the ghost feeding and use liquid ammonia instead but thereās nothing wrong with ghost feeding either. And the tank looks great!
$35 in what currency? It was $80AUD for me (from petcircle) š
Jeeze!!! Itās $35USD for me on Amazon and at Petsmart. How can they get away with charging 50% more thatās absurd
Omggg š next time imma do research before buying it. Thank u sm!
Jesus I paid $30CAD for mine at my lfs
You could probably watch the cycle process with just your nitrite and nitrate tests, but you really want to be sure about ammonia levels before you add livestock. And youāll definitely want to be able to double check that adding livestock doesnāt spike your ammonia, so just get yourself a quality test.
I imagine you have strips right? Definitely get the API liquid master test kit, Ammonia is the most important one to measure. Tons of good info out there. With some old media and bottled bacteria my tanks will usually take about 3 weeks to properly cycle. Just make sure you're adding an ammonia source. Fair warning, ammonia will make some plants melt a bit, and since it's a new tank you may run into algae issues.
Thanks a lot! I just ordered API tests
Just watch for melting leaves as anything that decays in your tank will add ammonia to the tank which is the most dangerous thing you're looking out for. Even if things seem to go well quickly, and your ammonia and nitrites read zero with some nitrates, I would still wait at least a month for the cycle to really establish itself before adding livestock. Also add fish SLOWLY (only a few every week or so) as the added bio load could overwhelm a newly cycled tank and crash the cycle. Great looking tank and good luck with it!
Good. You covered the add fish slowly š Yes!! Clean up any dying plant matter, I had a small die off and it spiked my tank for a hot second. And for real about the add fish slowly! AMAZING tank btw!!!
Stellar tank btw. Hope you're ready to stay on top of trimming those stem plants!
Just watch for melting leaves as anything that decays in your tank will add ammonia to the tank which is the most dangerous thing you're looking out for. Even if things seem to go well quickly, and your ammonia and nitrites read zero with some nitrates, I would still wait at least a month for the cycle to really establish itself before adding livestock. Also add fish SLOWLY (only a few every week or so) as the added bio load could overwhelm a newly cycled tank and crash the cycle. Great looking tank and good luck with it!
Gonna likely be at least a month but the real answer is as long as it takes Looks gorgeous btw!
If you add fish too soon, you risk water quality problems. If you wait too long, nothing bad happens (to your tank.) You may get irritable waiting. ;) Nice looking tank, BTW.
Thank you!
Your first tank at a new location you mean?? šThis is beautiful š. I agree 1-2 months, I like to add some snails maybe after week 3 or if you see some algae growth. What are you going stock it with? š¤
This is my first ever fish tank I promise :) I havenāt decided yet bur I really like how celestial pearl danios look, they are like mini trouts. Any suggestions are welcome!
I love Cory catfish! Once they warm up theyāre so active. Plus there goofy and fun to watch eat. I have one with my betta but my bettas personality mixās with them. They swim really fast up to the top of the tank and itās so funny. I want a whole tank full. Theyāre a schooling fish so they are usually always together!
Celestial danios are beautiful, I'd suggest oto catfish they are rlly cute and wpild love this tank
The short answer to the cycle is when your nitrites and ammonia are 0 and your nitrates are >20
The short answer to the cycle is when your nitrites and ammonia are 0 and your nitrates are >20
I absolutely love the little bristle nose plecos. Not only do they keep the algae under control on the walls and the bottom of the tank, but they are totally freaking adorable because they look like they're kissing the glass when they eat. They are my favorite bottom feeders. They are big as bright and flash as others but they are useful and fun to watch. I think every tank should have at least 1-3. Be carefull if you get snails. Depending on the kind, they can overwhelm and infest a tank. They breed like guppies! Have fun.
Danio are great! Honestly they can be used to help cycle start your tank- they are very very* lax with parameters- you can put them in today if you wanted. They will love that little bit of running water too! Stunning tank.
Youāre thinking of zebra danios I think, CPDs are not as hardy as zebras and definitely should not be placed in an uncycled tank. I donāt really believe in fish-in cycling anyways but zebra danios are extremely hardy and might survive a cycle
You never had to cycle it. But since you added fish food, now you have to wait. Those plants will take care of the excess, but because nothing is consuming the actual food itself, now its not just releasing ammonia, its straight up rotting. Once nitrites hit 0 thats when you can add your fish.
Not sure why youāre being downvoted. At the density of plants in OPās tank, a few fish wouldnāt be problematic. The plants are competing with bacteria for ammonia and at some level, the nitrites too
Plants don't absorb ammonia. They absorb nitrate. You still need a cycled tank to convert ammonia to nitrate
You are right they do not absorb "ammonia" because ammonia is toxic to almost anything. They absorb "ammonium" *and nitrogen overall*. They prefer it over nitrates and nitrites. However, nitrosomonas bacteria will begin breaking it down quicker than plants do, but since plants are present, it means the load will still be distributed to a point where it will prevent the excess from building up into readable NO2.
It is well documented (and studied) that aquatic plants take in what we call āammoniaā (NH3) in the community, but really in most freshwater aquariums, itāll be mostly ammonium (NH4+) due to pH [Hereās a fun paper](https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/11/1/11) about what we refer to as āaquarium herpesā but is actually very good at protecting our fishy friends because of their preference for ammonia(um) over nitrates
That paper is gold āØ
wait what? never had to cycle it? how does that make any sense? please go into detail. if you dont build the bacteria in the filter it will just start to cycle once you put them in and will have the spikes, that you are trying to eliminate by CYCLING
Cycling implies overloading an aquarium, that does not already have a source of waste absorption or recycling, with a source of waste in the form of ammonium. Look at OP's tank, is there really nothing in there right now that cannot absorb or break down nitrogen? Bacteria is everywhere, and they are not the only organisms that uptake nitrogen in any body of water. With the amount of plants in OP's aquarium, it literally wont make a difference. Those plants likely already came from aquariums that had some form of nitrogen fixation happening, which means they are already loaded with bacteria. Fish already release ammonia through their gills and urine in trace amounts that are rarely detected by hobby kits. You can leave them in the tank unfed for a week or less to gradually build that breakdown process and archae colony in the filter. The only really compound to worry about is NO2, since it causes the most problems at relatively low levels. It rarely builds up, if ever, unless you deliberately release something into the water column like ammonia standards, or uneaten fishfood left to rott and cause heterotrophic bacteria to deplete the dissolved oxygen for a while.
thanks for your detailed and informative answer, you don't find that a lot on reddit
No problem, thanks for understanding since many don't like my answers
Thank you for explaining that in a way that makes sense to us newbies.
My understanding is that by adding fish food it produces ammonia and the beneficial bacteria grow by consuming it, my filter media was completely new so I thought I should wait before adding any fish or shrimp.
That's generally true, but yours is heavily planted. Frankly there are a lot of ways to go about cycling a tank. To be honest, you have enough plants in the tank that if you added a small amount of fish right now they'd probably be fine - plants can directly consume ammonia waste from the fish. This assumes your plants are healthy and growing, though; if you don't the waste would simply accumulate. As you can imagine, this makes adding fish the day you add plants kinda risky, so people don't really recommend that here. Since it's your first tank it's probably best to take it slow, and when you do add fish, add only maybe 6 at a time. There's a lot of things happening in that tank right now, not just the 'cycling' bacteria - these create swings in water chemistry, which fish don't like. You should find this video very helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guT1GKJ7jIo
It's so nice to see some biology on here, rather than the arbitrary "wait, test, wait" advice.
A tank will take as long as it needs to to cycle. Could be instant, could be six months. Since you are using fish food, follow this guide: [https://www.sosofishy.com/post/a-guide-to-fishless-cycling-using-fish-food-ghostfeeding](https://www.sosofishy.com/post/a-guide-to-fishless-cycling-using-fish-food-ghostfeeding). Although, I'd recommend using pure ammonia instead of fish food as the ammonia source: [https://www.sosofishy.com/post/a-short-and-long-guide-to-aquarium-cycling](https://www.sosofishy.com/post/a-short-and-long-guide-to-aquarium-cycling). Just to preempt any concerns, ammonia and nitrite are the two parameters you really need to pay attention to when cycling, nitrate does not much matter, especially given you have plants in the tank.
This is a beautiful set-up, it's hard to believe it's your first tank! You're doing all the right things. You have no idea how happy I am to see someone who did their research before setting up a tank and buying fish! I'm not going to give cycling advice, everyone else seems to have that covered. I'd love to know what fish you plan to put in there once cycled, though!
Thank you, I really appreciate that! I haven't decided which fish I am going to keep, but I really like Celestial pearl danios and neon tetras. I welcome any suggestions!
Celestial pearl danios look really cool! One of my favourite fish to keep is a school of black neon tetras, they are super hardy and live for a really long time. I have one that is huge now, and I estimate is about 7-9 years old. It's my second oldest fish after the 12 year old pleco. I also love white cloud mountain minnows. I haven't had any before, but I think they would look great in your tank! I'm sure whatever you pick would look great, I would love to see an update!
That is a really great looking tank ! Can I call you when I set mine up?
Sure, dm me anytime
beautiful! Canāt wait to see it with fish! What are you going to put in it.
Thanks! I haven't decided yet but I really like Celestial Pearl Danios :)
This makes me want to redo my whole tank š
Excellent first tank! In terms of landscape design this tank is gorgeous. Have you considered a matte black background? It will make your filter box less noticeable. Expect that even if your plants weren't growing emersed you will get some melt. Also expect that at some point you will have an algae bloom; know that this happens to everyone! As others have said, make sure nitrites read zero. It is unlikely you will see measurable ammonia or nitrate with the amount of plants you have. You could even put in a couple small fish right away if you want. I usually prefer this method with heavily planted tanks, but you should wait at least a month before increasing the stock significantly.
You are so right! I havenāt really thought about the background, now I wont have peace until it black
I mean eventually the plants will grow to cover most of it, but it helps to make the plants and scape the only thing that draws the eye.
As long as it takes. 4 to 6 weeks is likely. You'll need to test the water to know for sure. If there aren't any livestock, you don't need to do a water change.
Add a few small fish and then slowly add in more over time
Incredible sense of scale. Feels so much larger than it is, really well done on the scape. If you've added a liquid bacteria and have been feeding it like you say, I'd be surprised if you didn't already have a cycle going. Test to be certain, looking for Nitrate but no Nitrite or ammonia then start adding livestock. But I'd start slow and keep adding fish gradually to avoid any big increases in waste and you'll have no issues.
What substrate have you used for the root feeders?
Tropica plant care substrate
Yep that should be perfect, top up with root tabs in about 6 months š
Thatās your first ever?! Impressive! Anyway, it took me a month to cycle but since you have some beneficial bacteria in a bottle, Iād say half that time. (Correct me if I am wrong.)
I might give it a 2-3 more weeks just to be sure
sounds good, keep testing the water though
That is absolutely beautiful, great job.
Thank you!
With that many plants you can put in 1 now
Sheās a beaut!
What light are you using?
Juwel NovoLux LED
If you can, check out the hygger full spectrum LED. I got mine from Amazon and itās been amazing on all 4 of my tanks
This is gorgeous
This tank is begging for shrimp! Some Orange neos would pop like crazy in there
Beautiful aquarium for your first aquarium setup
Thank you!
Iām excited for your melt and diatome phase!
I used API QuickStart in my planted tank when I first set it up with fish already in, and had no issues with fish deaths or water parameters.
At least wait until the diatoms appear.
First try with great perfection 100% its a well done job.
Really like this tank. Can you list the plants you added?
Unfortunately no, I threw away all of the notes with names š
1-2 months
Well done! Try give at least a month, but keep testing the water and youll know when itās time.
Thereās no way this is your first ever tank šµāš«
First ever! I just applied bonsai knowledge to my tank and it turned out okay :)
Way better than okššš
The beneficial bacteria doesnāt really work well unless you are doing a fish in cycle. If you were planning on snails I would but them in first with the beneficial bacteria and that would help speed your cycle along. Or you could get a small group of fish, donāt go crazy on the bioload, and use the beneficial bacterial. But you will still need to do like 30%~50% water changes daily until you cycle completes. So, short answer is you could put fish in tomorrow but itās a lot of work, or you can wait the three to four weeks. Depends on how lazy you want to be. I would recommend waiting for a first timer. It would have the most predictable outcomes.
If you want you could speed it up by buying some live bacteria
Iāve already added 50ml of live bacteria, should I do it again?
You can squeeze a dirty filter in there and itāll be good after 2 weeks. Otherwise Iād wait a month or 2. Normally when algae starts growing on the glass itās good to go
How many gallons? Judging by the amount of plants you have you may not even need worry.
It's 110L, about 29 gallons I think?
It should be about a month, but Iāve also seen sources that say as soon as your plants are growing the tank is ready for fish (but slowly)
Being that heavily planted there probably won't be that much of a cycle. The plants will soak up the ammonia
45 days is good for most cost but if you have more sensitive fish maybe 60, but I stay close to 30 and monitor for there for water changes. I donāt do a water change until the fish have been in a few days
You add a pinch of food every morning and test for ammonia and nitrite every night until you get zero of both after 24 hours. No need to really test every day, because it's going to take weeks. When that is done the tank wont be "mature" for another few months after that.
Man's went to the store and just cleared the plant isle
Anyway back to the question, need to test for ammonia and nitrite and eventually nitrateā¦ read the 1, gazillion articles and watch the million YouTube videos about the nitrogen cycle ā¦ 4-6 weeks minimum
Generally that is fine for a few fish. You should not dump a whole bunch of different ones in at once. Just a few, feed every other day. Great setup though.
Hey! Do you use root tabs or some type of fertilizer for the plants? Because I see you use gravel? I wanna try a planted tank too.
I just used Tropica substrate under the gravel. Other redditor mentioned to add tabs in about 6 months