# Am i ready for live plants yet?



## Lex (Oct 17, 2004)

ok, ive setup my tank, its a brand new tank with no fish ever in it, so theres absolutly no bacteria...not cycled or anything...

the only thing in the tank is gravel right now, can i add my live plants at the point, or do i have to add a few fish (ie. cheapo feeders) to get some bacteria in the tank?

will the plants do better if added now or added after theres a bit of a bioload?


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## KrazyCrusader (Oct 26, 2004)

depends on the plants. Plants use amonia, nitrites and nitrates for food. Some plants aren't very tolerable towards amonia though. Probably best to wait till you get bacteria in the tank. Although i've also heard of an interesting way to do a tank. You basically have a really really densly planted tank along with CO2 and lots of light. Then it doesn't really matter how many fish you have in the tank because the plants will absorb a large portion of your fishs waste


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## PacmanXSA (Nov 15, 2004)

I wouldn't add plants until I had a nitrAte reading. This typically occurs after a cycle.

Hope that helps baby









Pac


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## Lex (Oct 17, 2004)

hm, guess im gonna get some cycling fish to get the tank going, then add the plants...


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## mrodge (Nov 13, 2004)

well, id wait til you buy a fish


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## PYROPYGO1 (Nov 23, 2004)

you can add plants but you will also have to add some sort of plant food until your nitrates come up a bit. you can pick up some aquarium plant food called "leaf zone", you can pick it up at your local local fish store(lfs). i'm using the amazon sword plants in my 55 and 75. not sure yet if the swords will do good in sand yet, but the leaves haven't turned yellow. for proper treatment of the water using leaf zone you should add 1 teaspoon for every 10 U.S. gal. and repeat dose once a week. this is some good stuff, it has chelated iron and potassium( required for photosynthesis).


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