Live plants will always grab the ammonia faster than Nitrosomonas bacteria, always. It makes no difference if the tank is "cycled" before plants are added, or if the plants are introduced on day one. Once they are there, they need nitrogen and they use the ammonia/ammonium fast. The majority of aquarium plants do prefer ammonium as their nitrogen, and will use it if it is present. They turn to nitrates (and possibly nitrite, though the scientific studies on this are still sketchy) only if ammonium is not sufficient for their needs. And this means the light and other 16 nutrients have to be availalble in numbers needed by the various plants to fully photosynthesize.
Walstad is a trained microbiologist who has written extensively on this subject. And every knowledgeable botanist/planted tank source will say the same. In my own experience, I have set up dozens of tanks in my 15+ years using plants. I never have ammonia or nitrite above zero, and the tanks run for years until I decide to tear them down, change the substrate, or whatever.
Plants do also take up toxic ammonia as a toxin, over and above their need for it as a nutrient. And as Tom Barr, who is a professional aquatic botanist holding 2 or 3 degrees in the subject, has written, they can assimilate all the ammonia produced by fish and bacteria in a balanced aquarium.
Byron.
--- In AquaticLife@yahoogroups.com, sevenspringss@... wrote:
>
> Byron,
>
> With all due respect, it may just be that my rebuttal doesn't fit only with
> your scrutiny -- although I'm open to anything I may have missed. But
> first, as to some ammonia getting past the plants and establishing some
> bacteria, even though at a lower level of population -- I've already said that, and
> totally agree with it. This is a given, and a foregone conclusion. I
> stated that; with plants using the ammonia, the nitrogen cycle will never get
> established, as they'll (the bacteria, if you're following me) be largely
> starved out. Note, I said "largely" starved out, not completely starved out.
> So, sure, the relatively little ammonia left in the water column that the
> plants don't consume will be eaten by the nitrifying bacteria -- and they will
> multiply up to the point of what that small amount of ammonia will permit
> them to do, to the extent of how much bacteria this smaller amount of food can
> nourish them.
>
> And, while the nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (in addition to the
> ammonia-oxidizing bacteria) will also populate -- also, in much smaller amounts -- none
> of these bacteria populations will be large enough to convert the organic
> wastes of a normal bioload of fishes, as their populations will never be
> allowed to reach the proportions needed. In effect, the tank will not be cycled
> with a sufficient amount of bacteria to be considered as being able to
> maintain the water in a toxic-free state for the fishes without the help of the
> plants. Such a tank will never be fully cycled to the equivilent of being
> able to convert all the fish waste, in the absence of ammonia-consuming plants,
> if they were ever to perish or be removed/transplanted to other aquaria.
> While live plants are a help in keeping the ammonia level down, I see them as
> a tool not to be relied upon, as a replacement for nitrifying bacteria.
> There are many hobbyists who just don't know which plants to use and which
> plants not to use, when employing them as ammonia consumers (not all aquatic
> plants can use ammonia as a food).
>
> Now, if the nitrifying bacteria were to be allowed to cycle to the
> equivilent of converting the organic waste of the bioload of fishes present in the
> tank, in the absence of these plants, there would be much larger populations
> of the bacteria permitted to colonize the filter and all other surfaces.
> While adding plants after a full cycle is allowed to be established will
> reduce the amount of available ammonia, I have to disagree with you if your
> position is that the plants will still sufficiently out-compete the bacteria for
> this food, as to substantially reduce their numbers. With so much more
> bacteria now present, as first being allowed to multiply, the shear numbers of
> these bacteria would be able to use most -- although, of course, not all --
> the ammonia given off by the fishes, in a normally planted tank. A "normally
> planted tank," however can not only be subjective, but if one purposely
> overloads the tank with plants in efforts to use them to consume the ammoina
> rather than the bacteria, then sure, any large multitude of ammonia-consuming
> plants would hardly leave 0.01 ppm of ammonia left as bacteria food.
>
> If it's your choice to rely largely on plants to keep the ammonia in check,
> that's your prerogative, but it's still my opinion that it's running a risk
> not to have a fully cycled tank running, with sufficient populations of
> nitrifying bacteria. I certainly cannot condone it on here, especially as for
> one consideration, as these ammonia-consuming plants (even though they are
> many) have not been identified to the membership, and, unless they're aware
> that removing the full (or large portion) compliment of these plants will
> result in the much smaller than needed populations of bacteria not being able
> to address the now-rising ammonia level, their fishes will be subjected to
> toxic conditions of a mini-cycle. Without the membership knowing the all the
> aspects of using plants over cycling their tanks, it would be irresponsible
> for me to approve of this method if they did not know not to ever remove
> their plants -- or if they had a plant population die-off if, for example, they
> needed to raise their temp to a range that will "melt" some plant species,
> when needing to treat a disease.
>
> Yes, I'm sure most of the members are aware of Flourish Excel's limits --
> and dangers if overdosed -- and I was not trying to use this as any kind of
> example of an ammonia substitute, as we all know it's liquid carbon. As for
> "overdosing" (and it's possible with any product when not being careful),
> there are more milder products (even including some meds) such as this, which
> if used improperly (overdosed) can be equally toxic to fishes. Nothing
> should be purposely overdosed for any reason. This product (Flourish Excel)
> has been covered on this List many times in the past. It may be used at
> normal dosage as a plant food (of another type), especially in the absence of a
> CO2 injector -- can even be used to control some algae, but this is getting
> off the thread. Even in normal dosages though, as has been explained here
> also a number of times, it will melt Valisneria and Anacharis/Elodea.
>
> Ray
>
> .
>
> </HTML>
>
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