Plants from established tanks

[Kaliilo]

Quick question...
If you add say some moss balls and a big java fern from a very longstanding tank in an LFS that they also keep fish in...would that bring beneficial bacteria in with it? I cannot for the life of me work out why my second nano tank with no established media etc has already had a bacterial bloom, white biofilm on wood and nitrates off the charts in 24-36 hrs....took a few weeks in the smaller nano...im just interested, it still wont have fish in it for another month whilst the plants get settled. Everything seems to be happening really fast in this tank...even the plants are throwing shoots?

 

[LMuhlen]

would that bring beneficial bacteria in with it?

Most likely, yes. Microbes are everywhere and supposedly that is specially true for plant roots.

 

[Kaliilo]

Interesting, I did wonder but ive just never seen everything get going so fast haha

 

[Redeyeben]

I know this isnt a popular opinion but if i was you id stay as far away from moss balls as you can. I have had them in two different tanks and each time the algae spreads and completely takes over the tanks. I have removed all of them now and the hair algae keeps coming back. They are way too much hassle in my opinion.

 

[Kaliilo]

Hiya thanks for the reply. Had the moss balls stretched out on a tree for a month. No algae other than diatoms. My question was more the beneficial bacteria side of it though as I already had the fern and moss in my tank and was surprised to see a bacterial bloom in 24hrs. I dont mind algae at all...its still a plant after all but not had any to worry about But ive had moss balls in the past and never had an issue with them. I just never think of plants as starter media which is silly really lol