Hi all,
I'm talking about a fully mature tank that has stable, full compliment populations of bacteria and other microorganisms that can clean the tank properly, and that can handle any transient condition that might otherwise upset the biochemical balance.
I'll add my tuppence, in this case I agree with Clive, "
good things come to those who wait".
Are you saying this is not necessary to add anything and that the bacteria and microorganisms will find their own 'food' needed to colonise thus being in suitable numbers for the addition of fish after 6-8 weeks
I believe this to be true.
I may have missed the point as you may have been advocating starter kits, mud or food as a food source for the bacteria, but surely they all result in ammonia which then needs to be filtered?
All aquatic heterotrophic ("non-photosynthesing") organisms will be producing some ammonia as a by-product of their metabolism (
"proteases break the peptide bonds (of proteins) releasing the amino acids and then deaminases break the amino group off the amino acids, releasing ammonia"). In a non-planted tank with minimal surfaces, this ammonia will build up to toxic levels fairly quickly and can only be removed by water changes, being bound by a zeolite or Amquel etc, or it can enter "nitrification", the biological oxidation of ammonia to nitrite and nitrate.
This isn't true in the planted tank, unless we add toxic amounts of ammonia, or starve the plants of light and nutrients, the plants will act as "nitrogen sponges", combining the available NH3, NO2 and NO3 into new proteins (and particularly chlorophyll). This works even in a bare tank, particularly if we add floaters such as Amazon Frogbit (
Limnobium), with access to atmospheric CO2. Plants are extremely efficient at scavenging available fixed nitrogen, it is a scarce resource in nearly all natural ecosystems, and they have evolved complex systems to exploit sudden abundance.
If you have add in a substrate, rooted growing plants and the biofilm on surfaces, you begin to get some idea why planted aquariums are both enormously resilient to changes in fixed nitrogen levels, and why we are never entirely reliant on the filter bacteria for nitrification. The other
gain, gain situation with plants is their oxygen production, nitrification is an oxygen intensive process which is often limited in non-planted situations by oxygen availability to the filter bacteria.
cheers Darrel