How should I acclimate my fish?

[Friendly]

I’m going to be moving 3 silver dollars, 6 cory cats, and 1 common pleco from a 35g to a 90g and I was wondering what would be the best way to acclimate them. I was maybe thinking I could slowly fill the 35g with water from the 90g. Is that really a good idea? Any help will be greatly appreciated!

 

[tropicfishman]

yeah thats a good thing to do, if you can use the filter from the 35 on the 90 with the filter it came with to help setup the beneficial bacteria, if its the same kinda gravel ( color and all ) you can use some of it to help it cycle quicker, but defintly use some of the existing water if not all of it ( I would really clean the 35 good though to remove any colors or odors from the water beforehand....good luck and be sure to check your temps, water levels and all that good stuff

 

[Friendly]

yeah thats a good thing to do, if you can use the filter from the 35 on the 90 with the filter it came with to help setup the beneficial bacteria, if its the same kinda gravel ( color and all ) you can use some of it to help it cycle quicker, but defintly use some of the existing water if not all of it ( I would really clean the 35 good though to remove any colors or odors from the water beforehand....good luck and be sure to check your temps, water levels and all that good stuff

Yeah I'm going to wait till my 90g is fully cycled before I put my fish in it. I wasn't planning on putting any water from the 30g into the 90g. I was going to take out 25% out of the 30g and fill it back up with water from the 90%. Then after maybe an hour, I would take out 50% from the 30g and fill it again with water from the 90g. I'll keep doing that until the 30g only has water from the 90g in it. Then I would move all the fish. I've never had to move that many fish before to a new tank so I'm hoping that this method works.

As for the beneficial bacteria, I was planning on using Big Al's bio support. Has anyone ever used this before? http://www.bigalsonline.com/catalog/product.xml?product_id=28717;category_id=2225;pcid1=2207;pcid2=

 

[Tiffi]

It's not a very big bioload for a cycled 90gal, so why would you use that bioload stuff? Besides, I'm not even sure if it works at all.

Change half of your water against water out of the 90gal and set your fishes in the 90 after about an hour. you should be fine from there.

 

[YuccaPatrol]

I would add the water from my water changes from the 35 into the 90, as well as toss some gravel and filter media into the 90. If you did this for 2 water changes, you should have a quickly cycled tank.

Plus, the bioload will be so small that the 90 will catch up before it harms your fish.