Cycling a new, lightly planted tank

[magnosis]

My new 20g is going to be lightly planted.  I want to cover 100% of the substrate but it will be only tiny & small plants : HC, Riccia and Mosses for the most part.  Might add HM and hygro at some point if I'm willing to trim them often.

Typically, for heavily planted tanks, the popular approach is to add a ton of fast growing stem plants on day 1, use seeded media from another tank, and after only 1-2 weeks start stocking preferably with algae-eating fish and/or shrimps.  The tank goes into what is called a 'silent cycle'; basically the plants take care of most of the filtering at first, while the bacteria beds slowly builds up.  After a few weeks the aquarist can start replacing the fast-growing stem plants with whatever plant is desired.  More info on Silent Cycling can be found here.

I figured this approach would not work for me, because I don't want a ton of stem plants in this tank, and I figured it would be counter productive in the end.  The plants slow down the bacteria growth because they use a lot of the ammonia that feed the bacteria.  This doesn't matter much when then plant mass is maintained but in my case, removing (and not replacing) the plants would create a major imbalance and throw the tank into another cycle.

Therefore I'm running a fishless cycle, in the dark, using filter media from my big tank.  With a bit of luck the cycle could be done within 1-2 weeks, at which point I'll add the plants, start injecting co2 and dose ferts accordingly.

Do you think this is the best way to go ?  What would you do differently ?

[morrom]

In my high tech tank if I could have my time back I would do the dry start method.
Basically plant your ground cover plant fill the tank with enough water to cover them. Seal the top of the tank with cling wrap to keep the moisture in and run the lights 12Hrs a day. Once the plants have grown in fill the rest of the tank with water and other plants as desired. From my reading this is a good way to start off a Iwagumi style tank as they typical only have a few species of plants in the tank which many not be fast growers, it helps to keep algae a bay cause the plants use the nutrients in the water before the algae can. Now I have not done this but figure it would be worth a try next time around, anything would be better then dealing with this hair algae lol
http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.php/3594-The-Dry-Start-Up-Method-for-Planted-Aquariums
I think your method for achieving your cycle should be successful, but my concern is once you are all cycled and ready to add plants. The plants being added to the tank will not be able to use all the nutrients cause they are not established, there will be excess nutrients in the water and algae will take advantage of that.
If you do chose to do your method to cycle your tank, IMO add a bunch of Hornwort to the tank as well (just floating around). This will help keep algae at bay as your new plants grow in.
http://www.aquatic-eden.com/search/label/planted%20aquarium%20basics

[magnosis]

Good points, I hadn't even considered a dry start.  Its not too late, mind you.  I think it would make sense for that tank, especially since I have a lot of HC to grow.

As for my plants not able to use all the nutrients, doesn't that mostly depend on my dosing regime ? If I dose very little and do weekly water changes, I *should* be able to keep the nutrients to a minimum.  In theory ;-)

Thanks for posting the links, I'll read those articles tonight.  I might take you up on the suggestion and try this.