[TheNewEra]

FWIW, I have plants growing out in the tank that I add 3-4ppm of ammonia to every day. Several varieties of swords, some Val, etc. Bare bottom tank with an FX6, UV, CO2 reactor. Plants growing like crazy and the ammonia isn't bothering them at all.

You managed to grow swords and Valisneria without a substrate at all? That is pretty impressive!

These plants I understand would not have any problems surviving, and even thriving, during the cycling phase. I love bucephalandra, monte carlo and blyxa. In my experience I always had those melt in my tanks during the cycling phase.. So which is not great seeing as bucephalandra and blyxa are fairly expensive here.

Most people plant their tanks first, flood, add their ammonia source. Concentrations of ammonia at 2-3PPM won't harm plants - even moss.



You should never have to clean your substrate in a planted tank. Nothing beyond gently siphoning detritus from the surface of the substrate, anyway. And you wouldn't want to disturb a dirt or clay-based substrate.

If you're using a product like ADA Aqua Soil Amazonia, water changes are almost always necessary during the initial cycling process because ammonia concentrations are high. Daily for a week and less frequently for the next 3 weeks, generally. It's a lot of water. (Though, I only really do water changes with ADA products if the ammonia concentration ends up being higher than 7-8PPM.)



I tend to add floating plants to my tanks after they're 'cycled' just so there's less chance for me to disturb them. But most like Frogbit should be able to handle some ammonia.

If you want to do as few water changes as possible while cycling, may be a good idea to go with an inert substrate like sand or fine gravel. Then use liquid ammonia (no surfactants) or a an ammonia/ammonium product from a company like Dr. Tim's or Fritz Aquatics to dose the tank to 2-3PPM. Keep it at 2-3PPM for several weeks until the tank can process all the ammonia in 24 hours or less. This is a good primer on the fishless cycle.

The only water change you'd need to do is a 100% change the day before or the day you add all of your livestock.

I didn't know you should still add ammonia if you start off with a full planted tank and rich soil. Why do we do this though? Is the ammonia leaking from the soil not already crazy high?

I should have been more specific on cleaning, siphoning the detritus from the soil is what I meant by cleaning. Though I sometimes tap the soil a bit during thorough cleaning to stir up any detritus that might have fallen into the soil.

Perhaps I wrongly classified floating plants as well, I meant just taking a lot of water Wisteria and Ludwigia and let them float around soaking up ammonia.

I use Mastersoil HG instead of Amazonia, I had great experience with before. It is also designed to not let too much ammonia leak into the water column and it doesn't break the bank. I used to do the ADA water change regime in my other tanks. 1st week every day, 2nd week every 2 days, 3rd week every 3 days, 4th week twice a week and then weekly. Only previous tanks of which the biggest one was 100L that was no problem, 2.5 water jugs and I was fine. Now I'd need 8 water jugs for every water change. The ADA regime would require 130 jugs on the first month. Which is fairly pricey as well.

Can I do the fishless cycle like on the thread you included but with the soil instead of inert sand/gravel?

 

[TheNewEra]

Do you mean potting/garden soil or a clay/soil-based substrate specifically for planted tanks? Regardless, not everything on the market releases ammonia and that's why an ammonia source is necessary.



Yes. But like I mentioned above, if your substrate doesn't release ammonia, you'll have to add it.

Mastersoil is a clay based aquasoil, it still releases ammonia into the water column just not as much as ADA soil does. I doubt the 4 bags of soil won't release enough ammonia but it might best to just test the water for a few days and ammonia myself should it no be enough.

Can I lessen the water change regime it I do it like above without plants?