Opaline gourami moving from 10g to 55g

[abretz89]

Hi everyone I've been doing plenty of reading but this is my first post so bear with me.

I currently have an established 10g tank that I purchased used which came with a roughly 2 year old Opaline. It has been up and running with me for about 4 months. I knew it was too small for him to begin with so I've finally purchased a 55g with plans to add some tank mates soon. I've had it running for two days now and was wondering if I took all the plastic plants/driftwood and filter media from the 10g and transferred to the 55g would that be enough bacteria transfer to put him straight in? I do have a master kit to monitor water chemistry. Does this sound reasonable for just one fish or should I stick to letting it fishless cycle?

 

[Mebbid]

Hi everyone I've been doing plenty of reading but this is my first post so bear with me.

I currently have an established 10g tank that I purchased used which came with a roughly 2 year old Opaline. It has been up and running with me for about 4 months. I knew it was too small for him to begin with so I've finally purchased a 55g with plans to add some tank mates soon. I've had it running for two days now and was wondering if I took all the plastic plants/driftwood and filter media from the 10g and transferred to the 55g would that be enough bacteria transfer to put him straight in? I do have a master kit to monitor water chemistry. Does this sound reasonable for just one fish or should I stick to letting it fishless cycle?

Assuming you aren't increasing the bio load of the tank then yes, it will be plenty of bacteria to put him in. Give it 3 or 4 days at least to stabilize and then you can slowly start to add fish.

 

[candymancan]

Dont add more fish until down the road and dont feed anymore then you normally would and you should be okay..


Just remember the substrate has benficial bacteria as well, so even if you move the filters and some plants you will still be losing some good bacteria. I remember when i removed all the substrate in my 27g tank, and replaced it with Midnight black floramax a few years ago, I did nothing to the filter and used all the same lava rocks and wood and live plants the tank had before, and my ammonia shot up to 8.0... I didnt lose any fish though as i was dosing like 2 capfull of prime every day lol.. And it was actually pretty neat to see how the plants reacted with the 8.0 ammonia.. They went from green to red and looked really nice. Which only proves that plants prefer ammonia over nitrates

 

[abretz89]

Thanks guys. I transfered the sponge and filter media into the extra slots on my Penguin 350 as well as all the plants/decorations and put about half the substrate buried under the new gravel since they are different colors. I wanted to keep some gravel in the 10g since I still want to keep it running for either a QT or restock it for my wife and don't want to have to start from scratch again.

This gourami is having a blast having his run of all this new space haha

Also, any suggestions or experiences on good tank mates for an Opaline?