Guide: Cycling with Plants (Intermediate)

What this post is about

Cycling your tank is one of the most important part of fish keeping, establishing beneficial bacteria colony to to ensure safe environment for your livestock is the first step advised to beginner hobbyist everywhere around the world- what’s more this step remains relevant on your first day as it is on your 10,000th day.

But generally speaking cycling your tank is targeted towards providing a safe environment for your fauna, this post is exploring the importance of tank cycling for your plants. Lots of plants available to us hastens the cycling process by consuming excess nutrients and converting nutrients into growth as well as providing additional surface areas for beneficial bacteria to occupy.

It is important however to understand that plants just like fishes differ enormously in resilience and we should be mindful in choosing which plants are effective for cycling your aquarium and which plants requires pre-cycled tank to cultivate. As you take interests in more complex aquatic plants you will find that they share a lot of similarities to the most demanding fishes in tersm of water quality and parameters.

This post will focus on the following topics:

• Cycling Inert Aquarium
• Cycling Aquarium with nutrient rich substrate
• Nutrient Burn
• Cycling friendly flora
• Plant resilience & acclimation
• The benefits of plants in cycling your tank

Inert Aquarium: Cycling

Most fish keepers begin their hobby with inert substrate for numerous reasons and you can certainly cycle an inert tank with plants! unsurprisingly the first issue you’ll find with this method is the lack of nutrients available for your plants. Adding fish isn’t a good idea due to lack of bacteria colony in new aquariums and the waste they produce will easily cause more harm than good, liquid fertilising your tank works a treat if you plant heavy from the get go and as long as you keep fast growing undemanding plants.

Alternatively you can begin cycling inert tanks with ONLY extremely resilient plants (Anubias, Java ferns, frogbits etc)- there is a correlation between resilient plant being slow growers and slow growing plants does very little for removing nutrients from the water column.

We need a source of ammonia/nutrient to begin cycling your aquarium, bacteria colonies cannot develop in a vacuum so ‘seeding’ your tank with materials to kick start your cycling process is VITAL.

Running an empty tank with nothing but a heater, filter and 100% water for 9 months wont be cycling it at all…

Dosing a source of ammonia is important to start the cycling process

Some hobbyist utilize ‘ghost feeding’ to introduce a source of ammonia, others use extremely resilient fish to survive the cycling process- personally I use plants. Bacteria colony needs to be fed and without a source of food they will collapse.

Nutrient rich Aquarium: Cycling

If you intend to grow a planted tank then it is a good idea to setup with nutrient rich substrate to give your plants the best environment possible, commercially available aqua soil (ADA, Fluval, Oliver Knott etc) provide purchasable ‘easy’ start to setting up your planted aquarium. It’s important to know that aqua soil leeches nutrients the moment they come into contact with water and they continue to do so over the duration of their nutrient active life (around 1 year, depending on plant mass and growth rate)- this means that your water is prime for algae bloom if nutrients continue to run rampant.

ADA Amazonia for example leeches Ammonia for up to 6 weeks, providing the necessary nutrient source to start your bacteria colony, however can be lethal if you introduce your fish immediately. Guides on the internet suggests doing large frequent water changes when setting up nutrient rich aquarium- to me this is a waste of money, time and effort..you purchased nutrient rich substrate and now you are throwing away nutrients that your purchased to begin with….

Instead you can plant heavy from the get go, using a MIXTURE of fast growing and slow growing plants in a 30/70 ratio (favouring fast growers) to eat up the leeching nutrients, I’ve successfully done this with all my tanks and I can say for certain that your tank can be fish friendly within 2 weeks.

One of the biggest misconception in the hobby is the role of Ammonia in the planted tank, plants prefer ammonia over nitrogen. if your plants can consume ammonia before it reaches dangerous levels for your fish.

Nitrogen is far less dangerous for your fish in comparison to ammonium, hence the preference for nitrogen in plant fertilisers. With experience we can measure safe dosing levels of ammonia instead which functions superior to nitrogen in my experience.

Fulling planting out your nutrient rich aquarium with slow growing plants is not going to be helpful in the early stages of cycling your tank, nutrients will exist in larger quantities than can be consumed which leads to bacteria and algae bloom. it goes without saying that you should NOT be liquid dosing fertilisers in this type of setup early on in the cycle.

Nutrient Burn

This will be the second time on this blog that I speak on the subject, but it’s important to emphasise the detrimental effects of nutrient burns and how you should avoid it like the plague.

Nutrient burn occurs when your plants are exposed to extreme levels of caustic nutrients such as ammonia and nitrogen (others exists too) which leads to melting, rotting and generally plant deterioration and death. The domino effect that nutrient burn can have on your tank is destructive to your ecology and can lead to complete tank crash.

“As plants begin to die due to nutrient burn it breaks down which further adds nutrients into the water column and further amplifying the effects on other organisms in the environment, which leads to acidity in your tank to increase which eventually will drop below Ph of 6 at which points your bacteria colony will begin to die.“

All plants are effected by nutrient burn at varying concentration and early in the cycling process we have little control over the nutrient imbalance in our tank, sturdy plants can survive higher levels of nutrients burns and are ideal for cycling.

Cycling Plant: The Nutrient busters

Lets get it….first the good news, MOST plants available in your local fish store is effective for cycling, they are common, fast growing and resilient enough to survive the nutrient shock early on in the cycling process with limited melting/dying.

The Bad news: using common plants to cycle your tank and eventually replacing them is a pain….these plants usually develop extensive root systems and uprooting them can be messy. The easier the plant such as Anubias are next to useless for removing nutrients from the water column.

More bad news: The prettiest plants in the hobby are usually the first to die in the cycling process due to their sensitivity, my creation ‘Fantasy Fields’ is a prime example of ‘nutrient burn’ killing plants that I thought was resilient enough to survive the cycling process.

Cycling Flora: Plants on Bicycles

Alright alright you want a list of plant for cycling:

1. Hygrophila Polysperma
2. Amazon Frogbit
3. Wisteria Difformis
4. Vallisneria
5. Ambulia
6. Duck weed…No, Im not joking.

These are NOT the only plants you can have during cycling, but your cycling process should involves these plants or something similar along with your other options such as carpeting plants etc.

Note: DO NOT ONLY HAVE FAST GROWERS. this will deplete you nutrients really fast which will eventually leads to nutrient deficiencies and death.

As I’ve mentioned above, planting heavy with 30/70 ratio of fast growing plants and slow growing plants- if your preferences are all fast growers then consider light dosing your tank 3 weeks into cycling to keep up with the nutrient demand of your plants.

Plant Resilience: Acclimation

Many of the less common plants in the hobby are quiet sensitive to extreme water parameters and generally speaking they do not convert/acclimate well into an immature aquarium, in this regards these plants are similar to livestock when it comes to introducing them into your tank.

Before introducing more complicated species of plants- it is important to ensure that the tank is biologically mature, just like introducing sensitive fishes (Discus etc) it is vital that the ecology within the aquarium is stable and balanced.

I prefer to introduce new plants into an established tanks on days which I DON’T fertilise, I feel this puts less stress on the new plant being introduced into the ecosystem.

I suffered significant plant lost when introducing new plants into a nutrient rich environments without acclimation, immersed plants never converted and submersed plants melts away.

Benefits of plants: Cycling

without over complicating the process, our goal during the cycling period is simple:

Inert Tank: Develop beneficial bacteria colony, keep available nutrients within controllable levels.

Nutrient rich Tank: Convert the over abundance of accessible nutrients into plant growth, developing beneficial bacteria colony and suppressing algae through plant growth.

Using plants during the cycling process benefits you by providing cleaner water, more stable water parameters and hastening the cycling period to allow the introduction of livestock sooner. Planting heavily during cycling also develops microorganism population which assists the ecological processes required to grow a long term healthy aquarium ecosystem.

Final Thoughts

This blog came about from an interaction that I had with a customer, he had been cycling his nutrient-rich aquarium for several weeks was still being plagued by algae and milky water despite having plants and doing frequent water changes- I later learned that he had the correct idea with planting but his choice for plants was wrong for the purpose of cycling.

Regardless of how you feel about plants in your aquascape, they have a an important role to play in the metabolic process of your ecology- their aesthetic appeal is not a good metric to measure their effective functionality. It is important to understand that during the volatile period of the cycling period- your aquarium is a very unpleasant place to live in for both plants and animals-rampant nutrient levels and non-existent bacteria colonies stresses both flora and fauna. I would be mindful of the species of plants that I use during the cycling period to avoid deaths, more sensitive species of plants may not survive.

I have successfully cycled a new tank growing almost exclusive higher tier plants before but I would never recommend it. Treat plants like fishes, some can survive the cycling process and others cant- unlike fishes however choosing the right plants for cycling your tank actually benefits your tank and your plants.