5 gallon cycled, 10 gallon cycling, and DIY Co2?

[allaboutfish]

5 gallon
ammo-0
nitrites-0
nitrates 20
cycled!!!!!!!! yes!!!! how much will taking the filter cartilidge out affect the biofilter bc i wanna use it to cycle my 10 gallon?
10 gallon
ammo-0
nitrites-off the charts
nitrates-0
gonna add seaded material (ie. filter cartilidge and some gravel from 10 gallon).
DIY Co2- if i put the airstone at the bottom of the tank it stops bubbling why?

 

[dskidmore]

Are there fish in the 5 gallon? If not you could divide the filter media in half, and have half new and half old media in both tanks. If there are fish in the 5 gallon, I'd worry about upsetting things if you just finished the cycle, and just use a small amount of gravel transferred each week to help the 10 gallon speed things up.

DIY CO2 has very low pressure. The further down in the tank you go, the more pressure it takes to force the bubbles out. This is perfectly normal. You can either use a diffuser, or output the CO2 near the filter intake and let it get cycloned into the water. (You will loose some back to the air if it's a waterfall return though.)

Which tank is the CO2 in? You have plants yet? Fast growing plants can ease the cycle too, as they will absorb ammonia and nitrites. The downside is that your plant-based biofilter is very light dependant and may crash if you have a lighting failure. Not much different risk though than a biofilter based mostly inside a mechanical filter that could fail too.

 

[allaboutfish]

i dont have any fish in the 5 gallon just fish in the 10 gallon. the DIY Co2 is in the 10 gallon with dwarf hairgrass and some bulb plants from walmart anachris i think. i will leave the filter cartlidge in the 10 gallon until wednesday. that's when i have to move a betta and a tempoarely homed algae eater over. i have another filter cartlidge in the filter as of now which i hope in the 2 days the bacteria from the gravel will transfer to the filter. do you think it can do it in 2 days?

 

[dskidmore]

If the fish are in the uncycled tank, then by all means move over whatever you can from the cycled tank. Don't move over so much gravel that you deeply bury the growing bacteria in the existing gravel, less than a half inch. You've gotten through the first stage of the cycle (ammonia to 0) and you don't want to loose that while trying to help the second stage.

I don't think 2 days will totally cycle the other tank over, but it might help a little.

Are you using Prime or some other ammonia/nitrite detoxifier to help out the fish in the 10 gallon? I'd do water changes to get the nitrites down either way, and use the water conditioner to help tide the fish over between changes.

 

[allaboutfish]

i put the filter media and some gravel into the new tak (not alot bc it had to fit on the bottomg of this breeding net bc i have sand) i do use prime and i cant really do water changes that much bc my gravel vacume doesnt work bc the tank is tooo low and the one that hooks up to the sink wont bc the faucet doesnt fit right.

 

[dskidmore]

Even in a mature tank you need to do water changes 2-4 times a month. If you can't do water changes where your tank is, you need to relocate the tank.