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I've just put in the plants into my 15 gallon tank after 2 weeks of the tank running (but without all the plants, rocks and bogwood) and was just wandering how many weeks i have to wait for the aquarium to be ready for the first batch of fish. (this is in total, ie not including the first 2 weeks).

you have to cycle the tank. here an article
http://www.fishprofiles.net/faq/begin-cycling.asp
you could try a fishless cycle and add most of your fish at once. either way you do it it will take about 3-6 weeks more. but can be sped up using the product Cycle.

Er, I thought Cycle didn't do anything useful?

I'm just a novice, but from what I understand cycling will be somewhat different with an already-planted tank, just because the ammonia will generally be consumed by the plants before the bacteria can get to it. It seems like you'd actually have to have enough fish to surpass the ammonia consumption of the plants in order to get a bacterial colony going - otherwise the bacteria have no food and cannot establish themselves. "Enough fish" would be highly dependent on your choices of fish and plants, though.

Sort of true, but not quite. The bacterial colonies will still build up - the bacteria and the plants have more or less the same ability to grab the ammonia. Since the ammonia is all through the water, the bacteria will eat what passes by them (probably a good bit, with a good filter) and the plants will do the same. Now, I wouldn't advise heavily heavily planting a tank and then removing all the plants once it was fully stocked, but basically, there is a good, functioning biological filter.
Also, Cycle does work - but it was snake oil for a looooong time, so a lot of people still don't trust it, which is understandable. It's not perfect, but it's a good aid.

-Molly
Visit shelldwellers.com!

The "New Improved " cycle will speed up your tank cycle by about a week or so.

as soon as the temp is ready and filtration set up you can pop in some of that new improved cycle stuff or biospira whichever u find and right after that pop some fish 3-4 not too big

then sit back and enjoy