Thats right.....it is kinda a non-issue and the beauty of active growing live plants-often with live plants they will use the ammonia before it converts and you may never see nitrates and so that makes it hard to know if you are cycled or not. Plants take care of the water-you still need to make some water changes but once a NPT matures those can be decreased based on stocking-In my mature NPT some with filters and some without get 1-2 times a year water changes at most-I do top off with fresh water every week because I have open tops and have lots of evaporation....but no regular water changes, no health or fin problems...happy thriving fish and inverts.....this is for heavy planted tanks not tanks with plants...big difference.....
I wouldn't recommend adding Danios to a 4g even to cycle-with soil and live plants you don't have to worry so much about the nitrogen cycle-the active growth of the plants should take care of the water.
The soil was great! It was murky when i set it up but it cleared after a few water changes. Yep i heard the rule off the planted tank website , they said you can have so many because they produce very little waste. Wont all the spikes and ph changes kill the shrimp ??
Well....you got one on me...I never heard that rule....lol.....I have so many shrimp both the red cherry and the yellow morph....I bet I have more than 10/gal...lol.....
How is the tank doing? has it settled-one thing about the soil and livestock that stay close to the bottom is H2S (hydrogen sulfide) especially in new soil based tanks-trumpet snail and stem plants will help prevent this-I have never had any problems in my shrimp only soil based tanks and I set them up and add livestock all in the same day...just wanted you to be aware if you have any sudden deaths-it usually only kills the one if they are directly over the pocket of gas when it releases
I would add more stem plants (ludwigia) make a water change and add the shrimp and then make 25-50% water only changes twice a week for a month and then 25-50% water only thereafter provided that the stem plants are showing active growth-they will use the ammonia up before it can convert and will limit the nitrate which is what the shrimp can sometimes have more problems with. If you plan on using excel-I would use half recommended dosage-shrimp and the moss ball can sometimes have trouble with it
Only feed the shrimp 2-3 times a week in small amounts
Is this the tank you did the soil substrate with?
Its a 4 gal nano ,Plants are 1 amazon sword , 7 or 8 ludwigia repens (more can be added) , java fern , marimo moss . I dont know ph. (dont have test kit) After it cycles its going to be a red cherry shrimp tank , no bettas just them. So how long will it be??