Transferring fish. Too early?

[Satsumas]

I need to move my fish into a different tank so that i can completely start over again with my tank.

The tank is 30gal mine is 21-23 gal everything is working fine in the other tank. I checked the ph and ammonia levels..

pH - 8.0
Ammonia - between 0 and 0.25

I added 20% of my tank water then 80% treated tap water.
The temp is fine, 25 degrees celsius, there are about 5 plants and some gravel in there and i was wandering if i can transfer the fish there tonight?

The water's been in the tank for a day now. Is this too early? The ammonia and ph levels are ok.

ammonia should always be zero... even a slight ammonia spike can suggest a problem in the biological filter.

So you are moving your fish from a 20ish gallon to a 30 gallon? Or from a 30 gallon to the smaller tank?

The best way to do this is to use filter media from your old tank because that is where most of the bacteria resides. The water you used from your old tank doesn't really hold bacteria.. bacteria lives on surfaces, filter media, gravel.. etc.

What kind of filter are you using?

[Satsumas]

Im transferring my fish from my 20ish gallon tank into my brothers 30 [acronym:4ad8962cba="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:4ad8962cba] tank for the time being. Hopefully only a week.

I put some of my water in his tank because its cycled i guess and the fish would be used to it.

Yeah i think im going to put my filter in his tank aswell. His tank is a Juwel Rekord 120. (I think the 120 is litres) The filter is a standard juwel filter i guess. Not really sure. We got the tank from a friend of a friend.

As long as you transfer your filter with the fish you shouldn't have any problem... because the bacteria grows in the filter.
The water itself is not "cycled" ... cycled means that their is bacteria present and growing on the surfaces of the tank and these bacteria use ammonia and nitrite as food... converting it to notoxic forms. Ammonia-nitrite-nitrate. The end product is nitrate which has to be removed with partial water changes on a weekly to monthly basis.
I guess what im saying is that you didn't need to use the old water but it won't hurt anything. But you do need the filter or at least filter media so that there won't be an ammonia or nitrite spike.

[Satsumas]

Right. Im guessing i should have my filter from my tank and my brothers filter both on?

Originally Posted by Satsumas

Right. Im guessing i should have my filter from my tank and my brothers filter both on?

you can do that. The filter from your tank will have what you need as far as biomedia, and his filter will be able to start cycling so yes, that sounds good.

[Satsumas]

I moved them all last night. Looked this morning and they all look realy happy actually.

Both filters are on. I put mine in the tank for about 30 minutes before i added the fish.