Cycling 10g nursery tank

[Jojoba]

I am in the process of setting up a 10g nursery tank for my electric blue jack dempseys. I don't want the 3/4 in ebjd's competing for food with the angels and rainbows in the main 70g tank. When I bought the 10g and filter, the guy at the Lfs suggested that since I had an established 70g that I should quick cycle the tank with some sand substrate in a pantyhose. He didn't elaborate any further and went to serve a customer.

So now I have the murderer setup, with the filter and a cup of sand from my 70 hanging in pantyhose. How long will it have to hang there and how long should I have to wait outing the babies in? I will be picking up the heater and aerator tomorrow sometime.

Any other advise given would be greatly appreciated. Also feel free to ask me any questions.

Thx

 

[eco23]

Using substrate as seeding material to help cycle a tank is just that..."seed". It's a way to introduce beneficial bacteria to a tank and get things started, but it is not very efficient whatsoever at instantly cycling a tank IME. The vast majority of your beneficial bacteria is in the filter media, so donating a portion of that is most effective.

The best method (if it's an option) is to take the filter designed for the 10 gallon and run it on the larger tank for as long as possible. That will establish that filter and when you transfer it over it should be able to handle the bio-load. You can also simply remove some of the filter media from the main tank, throw it in the new filter and stock the new tank assuming the bio-load is small.

Simply adding the seeding material into the new tank without also adding either fish or a pure ammonia source will do nothing other than starve and kill the bacteria which is in there. It needs an ammonia source to feed on in order to survive. You can check out the article in my signature to get more info on cycling if it helps.

Keep in mind that the beneficial bacteria will adjust over time to the amount of fish in a tank...so you'll want to be aware that by removing any portion of filter media from the main tank has the potential of causing a mini-cycle...and it is not always capable of fully supporting the new tank initially. Make sure you test the water every day in both tanks and be prepared to do water changes as necessary until both tanks are fully stable.