tank cycle question

[babybetta]

ok I started a 5 gallon for my baby betta and some rcs. Its pretty heavily plated and I seeded it with gravel and some water from my other tanks. There are 4 apple snails eating alot and making lots of waste. so advice on how long I should wait to put the little one in? as a side not I dont have a test kit. keep meaning to get one but I run out of money after bills and such.



this is the tank

[AyalaCookiejar]

It's hard to tell without a test kit. For a baby Betta, I would wait until its cycled or do lots of water changes.

[babybetta]

yes but how long might that take Iv been doing research and geting alot of conflicting information some say in a planted not to worry about it the plants suck up all the bad stuff (I think this is a lie) others say its slower then non planted and takes weeks even when seeded some say it can take days.

[shellieca]

+1 with ayala. I will add, if your water quality was bad your snails would let you know. Can you move any of the seeded filter material from the other tank. The gravel & water have some BB but not much. Also, it is recommended that each apple snail have 2g water so I hope your plan is to move them out at some point.

[shellieca]

Originally Posted by babybetta

yes but how long might that take Iv been doing research and geting alot of conflicting information some say in a planted not to worry about it the plants suck up all the bad stuff (I think this is a lie) others say its slower then non planted and takes weeks even when seeded some say it can take days.

Each tank is different, my 10g took 8 wks to completely cycle, my 46g took 5-6, my tanks after that no time because I used seeded filter material from my other tanks. Your tank is not, IMO, heavily planted & they don't appear to be well established yet so that would make a difference in how much of an effect they have.

[Oldfishlady]

If the plants are in active growth/thriving...they will take care of the byproducts as they break down-especially in heavy planted tanks with lots of fast growing heavy feeding stem and floating plants. The key word....being active growth and this is dependent on proper color temp lights, age of bulb and photoperiod.

With heavy planted tanks you can do the silent cycle-Plants can provide a lot of the limiting factors for the beneficial bacteria. That being-oxygen, surface area and food source-even without a filter. But again, this depends on number, species and growth state of the plants....

With enough of the right species of active growing plants-It may take a long time if ever to see the nitrate reading we look for that tells us cycling stage/completeness-due to the plants using the ammonia before conversion, however, the cycling is still happening....Its silent....plus, hobby grade test kits only test at a ppm level and you will always have some ammonia-then things get converted fairly fast by the bacteria colony too.

IMO/E-you can safely establish the nitrogen cycle without a test kit on hand-you can always take water to the pet shop for test if needed. Without a test kit on hand you will have to guess a bit-but you can make extra water only changes along with the regular water change to error on the side of caution-especially with live plants with a low bioload.

How many and what species of plants, type of substrate and how deep. What kind of lights, age of bulbs, kelvin, watts and photoperiod, type of filter and filter media and additives used. How many days has it been setup.

Nice job on your tank by the way....looks nice.....

[babybetta]

yes snails will be spread out they are just in there to help the cycle I can cut a bit of media off another filter no problem I changed filters in a tank a while back and I didn't have the right kind so I riged a to wide one into the smaller space

[waterdog]

Originally Posted by Oldfishlady

If the plants are in active growth/thriving...they will take care of the byproducts as they break down-especially in heavy planted tanks with lots of fast growing heavy feeding stem and floating plants. The key word....being active growth and this is dependent on proper color temp lights, age of bulb and photoperiod.

With heavy planted tanks you can do the silent cycle-Plants can provide a lot of the limiting factors for the beneficial bacteria. That being-oxygen, surface area and food source-even without a filter. But again, this depends on number, species and growth state of the plants....

With enough of the right species of active growing plants-It may take a long time if ever to see the nitrate reading we look for that tells us cycling stage/completeness-due to the plants using the ammonia before conversion, however, the cycling is still happening....Its silent....plus, hobby grade test kits only test at a ppm level and you will always have some ammonia-then things get converted fairly fast by the bacteria colony too.

IMO/E-you can safely establish the nitrogen cycle without a test kit on hand-you can always take water to the pet shop for test if needed. Without a test kit on hand you will have to guess a bit-but you can make extra water only changes along with the regular water change to error on the side of caution-especially with live plants with a low bioload.

How many and what species of plants, type of substrate and how deep. What kind of lights, age of bulbs, kelvin, watts and photoperiod, type of filter and filter media and additives used. How many days has it been setup.

Nice job on your tank by the way....looks nice.....

Yeah, what she said!

[babybetta]

ok the tank is brand new its been set up for 3-4 days its an LED light with some indirect sunlight from the big windows acrossed the room it has about an inc of sand with an inc of gravel on top there are 3 types of floaters duckweed, frogbit and salvina other plant include java fern, windolov fern, brown crypt, amazon sowrd, java moss, bacopa, Crypt beketti, Anubias barteri nana Golden. also many of the plants are young clippings or babys recently cut from the mother plant. filter is a medium wisper in tank filter with a carbon filled medium sized filter (carbon gets dumped out in a few weeks dont know if that maters to anything) moved a few things around as well here is an updated pic also thought i should add its heated to around 75-80 range temp depending on time of day as I leave the curtains open and it cools the room alot

[Oldfishlady]

Are your LED's rated for live plants...Often regular LED's will not be enough for live plants since they are the wrong color temp. Hopefully you are getting enough light from the window to support photosynthesis.

Good that you plan on not using carbon long term since its not needed-especially with live plants since it can remove important nutrients.