The Initial Plants And Fishless Cycling

Note - The text on this page was written around Sep 98 when we planted the Mark 2 tank. It describes the initial choice of plants. For details of the current plant stock, see the current plants page.

Due to the limited choice available in most aquatic shops, we decided to try out a mail order company for the plants. A timely article on this subject appeared in Practical Fishkeeping a couple of months before, so we used this to make our decision as to which company to use. Their recommendation was for Greenline Aquatic Supplies, based on the high quality of the plants in the review selection.

Our initial order consisted of the plants detailed below. Our decision was basically made by going through their catalogue and looking up the plants in the "Interpet guide To Aquatic Plants" by Barry James (Salamander Books). Any plants that seemed suitable (ie attractive, easy to grow and not too demanding of high lighting) were noted. This gave us about seventeen species of plant, most of which were ordered.

On reflection, we probably ordered too many plants. For one thing, they grew so well, that we ended up having to give loads away after a few weeks as we could not fit the cuttings back into the tank (well, not if we wanted any fish in there). Furthermore, the tank might have looked a little better with the same overall number of plants, but of fewer species. This would have given a much larger display of each plant. Maybe if we ever set up another planted tank, we might try this out and see. (although we've got our eyes on a river tank next. Then a ciclid tank. Then ... well, you get the picture).

The table below shows the initial plant list, along with the number of plants ordered and comments on their condition. Overall, we were quite pleased with the plants, although not as much as the PFK article had led us to expect.

Initial Plant List

As well as that lot, we also had a Java fern, an Echinodorus Schlueteri and two Amazon Swords left over from the other tank. The Java fern was quite happy, having grown a lot since we originally bought it. This was spilt into two decent sized plants, as well as two babies that were growing on the leaves. The other plants were all in a very bad state, with little or no foliage and the few surviving leaves being brown and sad. We put these in the new tank out of sentimental feelings as they were some of the original plants that we bought.

The growth (or not) of these plants is documented in A FishKeeper's Diary below.

Planting the tank turned out to be a nightmare. Apart from the obvious problem of trying to plant a heavy selection of plants (ie trying to get your hand in between plants that are already planted without bashing them about too much), the Aquagrit turned out to be significantly lighter than ordinary gravel. this meant that many of the plants would just not stay down. As soon as they were planted, they would pop out of the substrate and float to the surface. Particular culprits here were the aglaonema simplex and the sagittaria platyphylla, which are about the most buoyant plants we have ever seen.

Planting took two full afternoons, followed by many hours replanting specimens that leapt out of the substrate over the next week. Following discussion in rec.aquaria.freshwater.plants, we tried dirty tactics. The stem plants had tissue strips wrapped around the bottom of the stems, which seemed to hold them down much better. The larger plants had small stones tied to their bases and the stones buried well into the substrate, holding the plant down. This worked well, although one of the aglaonema simplex managed to break free from its moorings about three weeks later. Ho hum.

The picture below is from some unknown time later. The plants creeping along the water surface were given to me by a neigbour as they were taking over his tank. I kept them for a while and then removed them as they were blocking too much light to the plants below. I never actually founbd out what they were !!

Cycling the tank (without fish !!)

When a new tank is set up, various parts of the biological system have to establish themselves. In particular, two sets of bacteria have to grow. The first set of bacteria convert ammonia (which is produced by decomposing fish waste) into nitrites and the second set convert nitrite into nitrate. When the tank is set up, very few of these bacteria are present. When the first fish are added, their waste produces ammonia which encourages the first bacteria colony to grow. This produces nitrites which encourages the second set to grow. When this has been achieved, more fish can be added and the bacteria colonies grow some more. This process is known as cycling and is the bane of the new fishkeeper's life. The ammonia and nitrite spikes that occur during cycling can give levels that are highly toxic to fish, resulting in death or injury. The most common beginner's problem is to put too many fish into a tank at once, resulting in sudden deaths from the spikes of ammonia and nitrite.

We were interested in the idea of cycling the tank without fish. The advantage of this is that there is no risk at all of losing fish as all of the spikes occur before the fish go into the tank. the simplest way to cycle the tank without fish is to add ammonia to the water. This simulates the introduction of fish and starts the cycle.

Due to the difficulty in obtaining pure ammonia (or anything that we could be satisifed was pure), we used ammonium bicarbonate instead. This comes as a white powder that dissolves readily (with a lot of fizzing) into water. Not knowing how much to use, we added a level teaspoon to the tank. A water test around an hour later (to give the water time to mix) showed an ammonia reading off the scale of the test kit !! Oops. never mind, without fish this was not a problem and it would get the cycle going faster.

Exactly two weeks later the tank was cycled. The ammonia and nitrite levels were zero and the nitrate level was around 10 mg/l, which is acceptable for fish. We were somewhat surprised at the speed of the cycling, but this was probably due to the plants extracting Nitrogen from the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates along the way.

The end result of this planting was a jungle. I was too reluctant to throw away any plants, and I had no idea what would take and what woudl not, so I planted everything. There wasn't too much room left for the fish !! During the next few weeks, the plants grew like mad. I had to prune them around twice a week to keep them in check. I managed to produce enough good quality cuttings to exchange at the LFS for some of the initial fish. The fish keeper's diary has more details of how the plants fared in the long term. The current plant stock is somewhat different.

It was time to add the fish ...