can i fill a new tank with cycled water?

[justrelax]

the subject pretty much sums it up... i picked up a little 5gal for my wife so she could have some fancy guppies. wondering if i can just take some water out of my 55 that's cycled and have an instantly ready tank?

on a side note, how many guppies can comfortably live in 5gallons? and should i be worried about algea and get a dwarf pleco?

three cheers for getting the wife hooked, too! this is the girl who adamantly opposes the idea of any pets, looks like i finally won!!

 

[Alshain]

Take gravel instead. The bacteria will be on the gravel and filter/biowheel, etc. Usually not free floating in the water. This will jump start the cycle process. As for the guppies, they can be from 2" to 2.5" which means a 5 gallon would be kind of small for any more than 2 or 3. My reccomendation would be to get a male and 2 females and that will fill your tank and keep the fish generally happy.

 

[SCFatz]

I'm gonna say bring some media over from the big one...filter cartidge/sponge ...which ever.
As mentioned...gravel in a nylon if nothing else...but filter media if you have some would be great imo..no cycle worries there..

The water doesn't matter nearly as much,but some clean water from a pwc would work just fine,and the temp will be close so why not.

I'm a BIG guppy fan,but the 5g is a little small.I say three at the max.

As far as sex goes I have three males and no females in my 29g with no issues what so ever...but I do have other fish and a lot more room,so that may be a factor in their behavior.

 

[justrelax]

i'm not too worried about having the MOST guppies i can fit in there. my primary concern would be the health of the fish. so what about just going with 1 or 2? do guppies need a friend to swim with?
looking back on my subject question, i guess i knew the answer to it... always looking for a way to get fish quicker...

 

[Alshain]

i'm not too worried about having the MOST guppies i can fit in there. my primary concern would be the health of the fish. so what about just going with 1 or 2? do guppies need a friend to swim with?
looking back on my subject question, i guess i knew the answer to it... always looking for a way to get fish quicker...

Male livebearers tend to over-stress a single female. Most people will reccomend 2-3 females per male. I don't think there would be a problem with keeping a single fish, but it might feel more secure if it were not alone. You could also have 2 males, I don't know a lot about guppies specifically but I've heard they are pretty peacefull and probably wouldn't fight for dominance.

 

[SCFatz]

I don't think I'd want a guppy loner...I don't "know" that they school,but mine are always around each other.

Start with two imo and just feel out the third.

Since the start of my tank I've passed over many a good looking gup...just to get the one that looked great .,,and all three of em look 100% better after some time in my tank (after looking good before hand).

Choose wisely is what i'm saying...In your case,be more selective (if possible lol) then I was.

 

[DepotFish]

Use gravel or even put a sponge from the cycled tank into the filter of the new tank. You should be able to fit 5 guppies in there no problem. A 5 gallon can and will cycle and stayed cycled. I currently have five goldfish ranging from 1-5 inches in a 5 gallon waiting till Friday to move to a 30 Gallon. The tank is overstocked but the cycle is doing fine and the water parameters are great. It takes 3 days for nitrites to show. I wouldn't house a 5 inch fish in a 5 gallon for more than a few days, but this should give you an idea of how much bioload a 5 gallon can take. It has one box filter filled with sponges for biomedia to grow on and one stingray hob filter, no gravel.

 

[justrelax]

thanx for the input everyone. i think we'll start with three and i'll just keep a close eye on them for a bit. if it ends up being too many i could always get just a little bigger tank, right?!?

 

[7Enigma]

DepotFish,

Are you testing for ammonia as well in that tank? NitrAte? A 5" fish (goldfish no less!!) will produce a significant amount of waste (not to mention the other 4 in there). I can't imagine (even being unfed) that within a few hours you didn't have unsafe levels of ammonia/nitrIte/nitrAte?

 

[DepotFish]

Yes I test all and all is well. The only problem today is a slight ph crash but we are moving tomorrow and they'll be fine with some baking soda and then I'll pick up some coral. No, my test kits have not gone bad. The fish are being fed, overfed even. I do a 20-40% water change daily. I've had goldfish forever, its not hard after the cycle is done to keep the water good. As I said I wouldn't house these fish in a 5 gallon even if I could keep the water perfect, simply because there isn't much room, but guppies would be no problem.

 

[tropicfishman]

I did this when I got my 29, just put the fish in a bucket with some tank water and filled other buckets up with tank water and transported it to the 29, iono how well it helped the fish but I also used all my old decorations and ran my old filter along side the new one, onbly problem I saw was that the fish didn't realize they had more room for a few hours lol