What constitutes a planted aquarium?

[Water nymph]

Hello Everyone, We had fresh/saltwater aquariums for a great many years, but none in the last 7 yrs. We've started a freshwater tank. Regarding plant cycling a new tank, I see photos of super heavily planted aquariums. For cycling purposes what constitutes a planted tank? A certain number of plants per a certain number of water gallons?

The reason for the questions is that we don’t want to carpet our tank and we don’t want it so heavily planted that we can’t see the hardscaping or fish, thus I wonder if the tank will plant cycle. It’s a 6-foot, 135-gal.

[gardenman]

I don't think there's a specific answer out there. One plant is better than none. Two is better than one. Three is better than two. You could just plant the corners of the tank and then add some easy to remove/contain floating plants like frogbit to help jumpstart the cycling process. (Avoid duckweed. It's not easy to remove.) The frogbit will pretty quickly grow and spread but can be removed easily once your tank has fully cycled.

[MattyIce]

6 hours ago, Water nymph said:

Hello Everyone, We had fresh/saltwater aquariums for a great many years, but none in the last 7 yrs. We've started a freshwater tank. Regarding plant cycling a new tank, I see photos of super heavily planted aquariums. For cycling purposes what constitutes a planted tank? A certain number of plants per a certain number of water gallons?

The reason for the questions is that we don’t want to carpet our tank and we don’t want it so heavily planted that we can’t see the hardscaping or fish, thus I wonder if the tank will plant cycle. It’s a 6-foot, 135-gal.

If you plant an aquarium, add fertilizer, and start to see plants grow, you know that the plants are feeding on stuff in the tank, so you know they can feed on fish waste in the tank.

In the event that you got the plants from a running aquarium, there was likely bacteria on them, so you also seeded beneficial bacteria in the tank when planting the plants.

These are the factors going into planted cycling a new tank.

To note, the plants aren't taking up too much waste, and the bacteria only grows as large as you feed it.  In my opinion, a planted cycle is really more just making a safety buffer for the first few fish you add until the tank gets fully cycled to an actual fish bio load, so still be cautious with how many fish you add at a time for at least a few weeks after you notice plant growth.



In my opinion, the right amount of plants would depend on how many fish you are planning to initially add to the tank.  If once the tank is Plant Cycled, you plan on adding 3 white cloud minnows and slowly add more every week after that, you would barely need any plants.  Where if you want to add a lot of fish initially, you need a lot of plants.
 

Edited January 3, 2021 by MattyIce

[lefty o]

a planted tank is a tank with 1 live plant or more. some folks go to extremes, others 1 or 2 plants, and many in between. it is all about what you want in your tank. even if it is only 1 or 2 plants, live plants do many good things for your aquarium.

[Water nymph]

 Thank you all for the great responses and tips!!!
(This is my first time on the forum and I'm trying to figure out how to respond to each of you individually.)

[JettsPapa]

8 hours ago, Water nymph said:

Hello Everyone, We had fresh/saltwater aquariums for a great many years, but none in the last 7 yrs. We've started a freshwater tank. Regarding plant cycling a new tank, I see photos of super heavily planted aquariums. For cycling purposes what constitutes a planted tank? A certain number of plants per a certain number of water gallons?

The reason for the questions is that we don’t want to carpet our tank and we don’t want it so heavily planted that we can’t see the hardscaping or fish, thus I wonder if the tank will plant cycle. It’s a 6-foot, 135-gal.

Maybe someone else addressed this question, but I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "I wonder if the tank will plant cycle."  Can you please clarify that.

6 minutes ago, Water nymph said:

 Thank you all for the great responses and tips!!!
(This is my first time on the forum and I'm trying to figure out how to respond to each of you individually.)

If you haven't started a reply then click on the "Quote" link immediately under a post.  That will start a new reply and insert the quoted message.  If you want to quote multiple messages (like I'm doing), then you can click on another "Quote" link at any time and it will be inserted at your cursor. 

[MattyIce]

10 minutes ago, JettsPapa said:

Maybe someone else addressed this question, but I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "I wonder if the tank will plant cycle."  Can you please clarify that.

At around 4 mins:

 

[Water nymph]

8 minutes ago, JettsPapa said:

Maybe someone else addressed this question, but I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "I wonder if the tank will plant cycle."  Can you please clarify that.

If you haven't started a reply then click on the "Quote" link immediately under a post.  That will start a new reply and insert the quoted message.  If you want to quote multiple messages (like I'm doing), then you can click on another "Quote" link at any time and it will be inserted at your cursor. 

Thanks JettsPapa! Regarding this: ""Maybe someone else addressed this question, but I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "I wonder if the tank will plant cycle."  Can you please clarify that.""  I know Cory said if plants are growing the tank has probably cycled. Do you also measure ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates to double-check it's cycled?

[Water nymph]

5 minutes ago, MattyIce said:

At around 4 mins:

 

Ah ha! So since our plants are growing we don't need to worry about testing ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates as proof that the tank has cycled, before we start adding fish. (In the past we did fish cycling.) 

[Daniel]

5 minutes ago, Water nymph said:

Ah ha! So since our plants are growing we don't need to worry about testing ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates as proof that the tank has cycled, before we start adding fish. (In the past we did fish cycling.) 

Not saying this is the right thing to do, but what I do when I set up a new aquarium is add plants and water from an existing aquarium and fish all on day 1.

I don't test to see if the tank is cycled at any point. My assumption is that the tank will reach whatever equilibrium it needs to over time based on what sort of bioload is in the aquarium.

[Water nymph]

10 minutes ago, Water nymph said:

Thanks JettsPapa! Regarding this: ""Maybe someone else addressed this question, but I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "I wonder if the tank will plant cycle."  Can you please clarify that.""  I know Cory said if plants are growing the tank has probably cycled. Do you also measure ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates to double-check it's cycled?

Per the video Mattyice posted below, since our plants are indeed growing, my husband and I don't need to worry about testing ammonia/nitrites/nitrates, before we start slowly introducing fish to the aquarium. 

[MattyIce]

Just now, Water nymph said:

Ah ha! So since our plants are growing we don't need to worry about testing ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates as proof that the tank has cycled, before we start adding fish. (In the past we did fish cycling.) 

Specifically as it concerns verifying that the cycle has occurred, correct, you do not have to test, as nothing would show since everything is being eaten by the plants.

But you still want to make sure that nothing is showing before adding fish even if you see plant growth.

 

[Water nymph]

3 minutes ago, Daniel said:

Not saying this is the right thing to do, but what I do when I set up a new aquarium is add plants and water from an existing aquarium and fish all on day 1.

I don't test to see if the tank is cycled at any point. My assumption is that the tank will reach whatever equilibrium it needs to over time based on what sort of bioload is in the aquarium.

We like that and would have done the same thing too, but this is our first tank in 7 yrs. We have plants in the tank and we also purchased a bag of media from the local aquarium store. This is media directly from their established aquariums.   

[Water nymph]

3 minutes ago, MattyIce said:

Specifically as it concerns verifying that the cycle has occurred, correct, you do not have to test, as nothing would show since everything is being eaten by the plants.

But you still want to make sure that nothing is showing before adding fish even if you see plant growth.

 

Got it! Thanks so much!!! Our plants started growing soon after planting them. We kept waiting to see changes in the water parameters, but nothing's really changed.  

[ChefConfit]

If you are using plants and media from an established aquarium then your tank was most likely fully cycled when you set it up, but if the there has been no ammonia source(fish poop/uneaten food) to feed the BB it will have begun to die off until it reaches a population level that can be sustained by the available food. The good news is BB populations can double in roughly 24 hours so it shouldn't take long for them to bounce back. 

You should be good to add fish, but I wouldn't add them all at once. I usually break it up into 4 groups to be added 1 week apart from each other.

I'd also test even though there most likely not going to be a problem because buying a pack of test strips is way cheaper than buying new fish. 

[Water nymph]

6 minutes ago, ChefConfit said:

If you are using plants and media from an established aquarium then your tank was most likely fully cycled when you set it up, but if the there has been no ammonia source(fish poop/uneaten food) to feed the BB it will have begun to die off until it reaches a population level that can be sustained by the available food. The good news is BB populations can double in roughly 24 hours so it shouldn't take long for them to bounce back. 

You should be good to add fish, but I wouldn't add them all at once. I usually break it up into 4 groups to be added 1 week apart from each other.

I'd also test even though there most likely not going to be a problem because buying a pack of test strips is way cheaper than buying new fish. 

Thanks! We'll add fish gradually and test water parameters too.  

[Joshua14]

I've been wondering this for a little while myself. About 2 months ago I reset the 30 gallon in my living room. I ended up with a tile bottom and some plants I took from other tanks. I'm going to continue to add more plants but I think I'm going to stick to a more bare bottom style. I can't decide if it's considered a planted tank or not? 🤷

[Streetwise]

I prefer to avoid gatekeeping definitions, so I would say any tank with live plants is a planted tank. A planted aquatic ecosystem might be one where the plants, substrate, light, inhabitants, and nutrients are in balance. See STT: Seasoned Tank Time.

[ChefConfit]

I'd say as long as live plants are a noticeable component of the tank its a planted tank. 1 6in piece of driftwood covered in anubias in the corner of an 800 gallon? Probably wouldn't call it a planted tank cause you might not even notice there's a plant in it. That same piece of wood and anubias in a 5 gallon? That's a planted tank. 

[lefty o]

2 hours ago, Joshua14 said:

I've been wondering this for a little while myself. About 2 months ago I reset the 30 gallon in my living room. I ended up with a tile bottom and some plants I took from other tanks. I'm going to continue to add more plants but I think I'm going to stick to a more bare bottom style. I can't decide if it's considered a planted tank or not? 🤷

you have plants, i consider it planted.

[FishyThoughts]

This is not an exact accurate method. But will give you some idea of what the tank is doing as far as cycled state. 
If your wanted to check the state of a planted aquarium you can dump some fish food (more than what the plant can handle) in it. Basically let it rot and test your water. If you see ammonia than the BB isn’t established enough to support much bio load, no ammonia but nitrites would indicate it can support some (around the amount of fish that would eat the food you put in), only nitrates would indicate that the tank is more or less cycled and can support a bio load. 
If it results in only high nitrates, meaning the tank is cycled, I would recommend a water change to bring it to a manageable level and then wait a day before adding stock to allow it to settle again. 
 

Like I mentioned, it’s not an guaranteed method. But i have had decent results with making sure there’s sources to create ammonia while I’m cycling a tank. I haven’t had any large spikes of ammonia from adding the livestock and I don’t really spread out adding the fish. 
 

And like others mentioned getting media from an established tank basically jumpstarts your aquarium. So almost instantly cycled, but it does need some food source to maintain and grow additional BB. 

[Water nymph]

9 hours ago, FishyThoughts said:

This is not an exact accurate method. But will give you some idea of what the tank is doing as far as cycled state. 
If your wanted to check the state of a planted aquarium you can dump some fish food (more than what the plant can handle) in it. Basically let it rot and test your water. If you see ammonia than the BB isn’t established enough to support much bio load, no ammonia but nitrites would indicate it can support some (around the amount of fish that would eat the food you put in), only nitrates would indicate that the tank is more or less cycled and can support a bio load. 
If it results in only high nitrates, meaning the tank is cycled, I would recommend a water change to bring it to a manageable level and then wait a day before adding stock to allow it to settle again. 
 

Like I mentioned, it’s not an guaranteed method. But i have had decent results with making sure there’s sources to create ammonia while I’m cycling a tank. I haven’t had any large spikes of ammonia from adding the livestock and I don’t really spread out adding the fish. 
 

And like others mentioned getting media from an established tank basically jumpstarts your aquarium. So almost instantly cycled, but it does need some food source to maintain and grow additional BB. 

Thanks for your reply. This is a brand new 135-gal tank so when we purchased the first plants we purchased a small bag of media from the aquarium shop’s established tanks, and a week later purchased a larger bag of their established media along with more plants.  

We’ve been doing frequent H2O parameter checks using API master test kit the entire time, and we’ve now started adding fish. All fish have remained healthy. Minnows ate the white fungus on wood. Algae is growing on the tank walls – as expected. We’ve made no water changes yet.
 

Does the following mean the plants and bacteria are keeping everything in balance?
Our pH has not changed, at all, since we started the tank - it’s still 7.6.
Ammonia was 0.25 the first two times we tested, but has remained O-ppm for the last 10 tests.
Nitrite tested at 0.25ppm the first 2 times, but it’s been O-ppm several times since then.
We’ve never had a Nitrate positive test since we started the tank. 

 

[lefty o]

sounds like you are doing fine.

[FishyThoughts]

Not sure if that store charges more for the established media than the new media. But the second round of established media wasn’t really needed. The bacteria is supposed to more or less double each day, providing there’s food for it. So you would have been good with just the first bit of media. 
Ammonia and nitrite readings are normal starting a tank up. Ideally you won’t really have anymore readings with those two. Then depending on your setup/stocking you may or may not really have much nitrates. But just incase your not... the nitrate #2 fluid has to be shaken very well. If not it will only give a reading of 0. 

[Water nymph]

8 hours ago, FishyThoughts said:

Not sure if that store charges more for the established media than the new media. But the second round of established media wasn’t really needed. The bacteria is supposed to more or less double each day, providing there’s food for it. So you would have been good with just the first bit of media. 
Ammonia and nitrite readings are normal starting a tank up. Ideally you won’t really have anymore readings with those two. Then depending on your setup/stocking you may or may not really have much nitrates. But just incase your not... the nitrate #2 fluid has to be shaken very well. If not it will only give a reading of 0. 

Darn, it's too bad we bought a second bag of media. We started the tank on Dec 17, so I keep expecting to see changes. I won't be so concerned now. Thanks! We are careful when following directions for the API tests.