Seeding new tank with established media/substrate??

[ReneeMarie]

Hello all! It’s me again with yet another question J

I went out and bought myself a new 55 on the weekend which I promptly set up! (no fish yet of course).

So, here's my question: I have an established 20 gal with 4 silver dollar tetras (I know – too small…that’s why I bought the 55) and I would like to know if I place some of the established filter media into the new tank along with the few established rocks and plants that I already placed in there how long should I wait before transferring the tetras???

Thank you!

Renee

 

[rich311k]

If you move the old filter over to the new tank and run it concurrently with your new filter you can move all the fish at once right away. Run both filters for a months or so and your are done. You can then move the old filter back to the twenty and you have two cycled tanks.

Good luck and congrats on the new tank.

 

[TomK2]

Agreed, fastest way is to run both the little tank filter and the new filter on the larger tank at the same time. Then you can transfer the fish right away. After a week or two, you could probably even buy some new fish if everything is OK (ammonia and nitrite = 0). But add stock slowly, so as not to get ahead of your filters biologic growth. Then after about 6 weeks, you could safely withdraw the little tanks filter. If you don't want to run both filters, such as you don't want to cut out the back for two filters, then transfer all the biomedia from the little filter to the new filter. Putting the colonized media directly into the new filter works better than putting it in the tank. Hard to do if the little tanks filter used proprietary cartridges.

And next time, put a sponge on an established tanks intake a month before setting up the new tank. Sponges don't require cut-outs, don't require you to disable one filter to jump start the other, and are easy to move around.

You can also cram an existing filter full of biomedia a month before a new tank so that there is more to seed the new filter when it is set up, and more to leave behind with the established tank.

And don't forget that if the new filter won't over power your existing tank, you can buy it a month before the new tank, run it on the established tank, them move it over when you get the new tank.

Sure, most of the above won't help you now, but if you are an early case of MTS, there will be a next time!

 

[ReneeMarie]

Yippeeeeeee

Thank you so much for your help and advice! I will put my guys in their new home tonight.....oh this is going to be one looooooooooooooooong day at work!!! 8O

...and no TomK2...I'm not in the early stages of MTS...I've progressed to the full blown stage! I now have two 55's and if I had the room I'd have more.............oooooooooooooohhhh maybe a 100 or 200?????