# plants and fishless cycle ???



## bigcountry10 (Sep 24, 2011)

Hi everyone, I was just wondering is it safe to add plants during a fishless cycle ? I want to get some plants into the tank and let them get established before any stock get in because a few of the fish I want like cover. I just want to make sure it's alright though due to the fact that I'm adding ammonia to the tank.


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## BBradbury (Apr 22, 2011)

bigcountry10 said:


> Hi everyone, I was just wondering is it safe to add plants during a fishless cycle ? I want to get some plants into the tank and let them get established before any stock get in because a few of the fish I want like cover. I just want to make sure it's alright though due to the fact that I'm adding ammonia to the tank.


Hello big...

Absolutely! Get as many plants into the tank as possible. I heavily planted all my tanks. But, do your research on the plants you want and the planting particulars prior to buying. You'll need to match them to the lighting you have in the tank.

B


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## beaslbob (May 29, 2009)

imho yes.

In fact with enough fast growing plants you get no ammonia nor nitrite spikes even if you don't add ammonia and just add fish slowly and don't feed for a week.

my .02


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## graybot (Apr 24, 2011)

This is true. If you plant heavily, or float a bunch of water sprite, you can add fish right away. This is called a silent cycle, and I've had success using this method on 3 tanks. No detectable ammonia or nitrites, but the cycle can take much longer. For example, it took about 2 months before nitrates were present in my 29g cycling with two convicts, but at no point was ammonia detected. I used 3 amazon swords and two fistfuls of water sprite. As long as the plants are present there should be no harm to your fish.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

No harm in doing fishless and plants though if that is what you want to do. You will fully stock the tank faster that way - silent cycle calls for pretty slow stocking and as posted can take a while to complete. I wouldn't drive the ammonia levels above 4ppm. Some say that too high will burn plants.


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