Wookii
Member
Let me start by saying I've read enough threads on this forum to appreciate that the consensus, certainly on this forum, seems to be generally against artificial tank cycling with added ammonia.
Normally I wouldn't consider this approach anyway, I never used added ammonia 16 years ago when I used to have planted tanks, I would just add the plants, on tank set-up, and once I was happy the plants had grown large enough, I'd slowly start adding some fish.
That however was me, just putting together tanks purely for myself - I like the plants almost as much as the fish and shrimp, so I was happy for the required extended wait.
This new 60 litre tank I am putting together however is also for my 7 year old son (well it's supposed to be mainly for my son, but I'm hijacking it by making it a high tech fully planted tank!).
Anyone who has had a 7 year old involved with tanks, will probably appreciate that its usually not about the plants for them, its all about the critters. Those people will probably also appreciate that few 7 year olds would maintain interest waiting 6-8 weeks for a planted tank to develop biologically, sufficiently to start supporting fauna.
To add to the 'delay', whilst much of the tank is ready and mostly set-up (or will be finalised in the next week or so) including filtration, substrate, hard scape ready to assemble etc, some key things are to be Christmas presents for my son, including the light, glass ware and plants. So I can't plant it yet anyway, and he's currently staring at an empty tank set up in his room.
My current thinking therefore is I could finish setting the tank up now, and artificially cycle it over the next 5 weeks, without lights, to mature the filter and substrate and establish the biological filtration in readiness for Christmas.
Then on Christmas day/Boxing Day we can have some father and son time draining the tank to the substrate and planting his new plants, adding the light and glass ware, before re-filling, setting up the CO2 and allowing them to grow in for a week or two.
At that point I would hope the tank, with the pre-cycling and the later added plant mass, would have sufficient biological filtration capacity to support some shrimp and a few fish. Job done - sons interest maintained.
I appreciate it's not the purist approach of planting right at the start and waiting 6-8 weeks - but do you think its an acceptable approach given the unique constraints and the desire to reduce the gap between Christmas day and critter introduction?
Normally I wouldn't consider this approach anyway, I never used added ammonia 16 years ago when I used to have planted tanks, I would just add the plants, on tank set-up, and once I was happy the plants had grown large enough, I'd slowly start adding some fish.
That however was me, just putting together tanks purely for myself - I like the plants almost as much as the fish and shrimp, so I was happy for the required extended wait.
This new 60 litre tank I am putting together however is also for my 7 year old son (well it's supposed to be mainly for my son, but I'm hijacking it by making it a high tech fully planted tank!).
Anyone who has had a 7 year old involved with tanks, will probably appreciate that its usually not about the plants for them, its all about the critters. Those people will probably also appreciate that few 7 year olds would maintain interest waiting 6-8 weeks for a planted tank to develop biologically, sufficiently to start supporting fauna.
To add to the 'delay', whilst much of the tank is ready and mostly set-up (or will be finalised in the next week or so) including filtration, substrate, hard scape ready to assemble etc, some key things are to be Christmas presents for my son, including the light, glass ware and plants. So I can't plant it yet anyway, and he's currently staring at an empty tank set up in his room.
My current thinking therefore is I could finish setting the tank up now, and artificially cycle it over the next 5 weeks, without lights, to mature the filter and substrate and establish the biological filtration in readiness for Christmas.
Then on Christmas day/Boxing Day we can have some father and son time draining the tank to the substrate and planting his new plants, adding the light and glass ware, before re-filling, setting up the CO2 and allowing them to grow in for a week or two.
At that point I would hope the tank, with the pre-cycling and the later added plant mass, would have sufficient biological filtration capacity to support some shrimp and a few fish. Job done - sons interest maintained.
I appreciate it's not the purist approach of planting right at the start and waiting 6-8 weeks - but do you think its an acceptable approach given the unique constraints and the desire to reduce the gap between Christmas day and critter introduction?