re:I'm Ready to Start!

To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com (Aquatic-Plants)
Subject: re:I'm Ready to Start!
From: "David W. Webb" <dwebb at ti_com>
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 11:24:38 -0800
Conversation-Id: <BMSMTP82449843433a0206807 at dlep1_itg.ti.com>

>Once the tank is
>cycled, I intend on ordering an assortment of plants from one of the
>mailorder suppliers whos catalogs I,ve been collecting. My intention is to
>plant heavily. 

If you intend to plant heavily, you really shouldn't cycle the tank first.  The
plants will need the head-start on the algae and they really should get the
head-start on the nitrification bacteria too, IMO.

I would recommend planting the tank from the start and slowly adding fish just
like you would to cycle.  The difference will be that you won't notice any
ammonium or nitrite buildup because the plants will use it all for fertilizer.
If your load does exceed the plants' capacity, the first sign of it should be
slowly rising nitrate levels.

David W. Webb
Enterprise Computing Provisioning
Texas Instruments Inc. Dallas, TX USA
(214) 575-3443 (voice)  MSGID:       DAWB
(214) 575-4853 (fax)    Internet:    dwebb at ti_com
(214) 581-2380 (pager)  Text Pager:  pgr at ti_com Subj:PAGE:David Webb