Cycle-less Tank Upgrade (20H to 30XH)

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jrc0528

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Sep 30, 2014
Messages
123
Location
Eastern Ohio
A few weeks ago I decided that my two goldfish appeared a bit cramped in their 20 gallon tank. They are around 4" long each not including their tails.

Given the location of the tank, I couldn't really go longer but I lucked out and found a great deal on a 30 extra tall tank (same footprint as the 20 tall at 24"W x 12"D).

The existing tank has redundant filtration, The main filtration is a 5 gallon sump equiped with three progressively finer pads (10" x 3" each) atop about 3" thick filter floss. Also in this sump is a biomedia stage loaded with 3" x 5" x 10" of seachem pond matrix (approx 2.5 quarts, or anough for well over 100G of water). The other filter is a AquaClear 70 HOB with the standard stages (filter sponge, carbon, & biomedia). This tank is moderately planted and has a mix of regular aquarium gravel and florite plant substrate.

Temporary housing was established in a 10G I happen to have sitting around. I siphoned off enough water to about fill the temp tank from the existing tank, moved the air and heater, and then the fish and plants.

The remaining water was used to wash the gravel simply by well agitating everything for several minutes, creating a very nasty dirty mess you couldn't even begin to see through! Once the dirt was all well agitated, I scooped the gravel out into a waiting 5G bucket, sure a little dirt remains in the gravel, but that's fine (actually it was desired). The now empty 20G and stand were removed and replaced with the new 30G and nicer wooden stand.

After a bit of research, I had decided that the new setup was going to include undergravel filtration, powered via the AquaClear 70 HOB (it's intake connects directly to the undergravel's riser). I installed the undergravel filter and trimmed the riser to fit up perfectly with the AC70 intake, then scooped in all the old gravel mix and added about another 10-15 lbs of mix, ending with just under 2" depth in the front to about 3" depth in the rear.

Next in were 10G of new treated water followed by the plants and decorations, the bubble bar, and I also installed the overflow box and sump. Once the plants were in, I added 10 more G of treated water (all water in is 78-80F) and transferred the fish to their new home. Once the fish were in they were followed by the 10G of water from the temp tank (I kept this water so as to preserve some slight ammonia and nitrite levels for the bacteria). With the tank now full I started the overflow box up and switched on power to the sump's pump, the AC70 was also powered up at this time.

I have been monitoring the Ammonia & Nitrite levels closely for the past couple weeks and I'm happy to report that despite two well-fed fish, there have been no measurable levels of either in the tank!! This is due to my three-sided attack to the issue, neither the AC70 nor the sump were cleaned in the weeks preceding the switch (to maximize the colonization of Beneficial Bacteria) and the gravel was rinsed in tank water only (also to avoid killing the BB residing on/in the gravel.

If you pay close attention to your BB, it is quite easy to avoid cycles in new tanks. My next project is setting up the 20G tank as a heavily planted tank (removing my excess from the 75G tank) and raising ghost shrimp in it. I currently have had two Lee's corner filters loaded with seachem biomatrix runnign in the 5G sump for about a month now. These will be transferred to the new tank to prime it as soon as I add fish or shrimp to it.
 
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