Seeding for a new tank..

[Catfish Lover]

How long will it take if I drop a bag of biomax in my 55 gallon community tank for enough bacteria to build up to transfer to a 20 gallon long? The 20 gallon will only house 2 bolivian cichlids. My 55 is well established and has 35 fish.

 

[gilpi]

I would just take a piece of filter media from the 55 and place it together with the 20 gallon's filter. I recently set up a 20g long by soaking the new media into the dirty filter water of my established tank and was ready to go. I house 3 rams in it.
Either of those should get you going a lot faster.

 

[NYgiantsRP]

Yup, just get some of the sponge from the establsihed tank into the filter of the new tank. Theoretically it should be instantly cylced.

 

[wildroseofky]

You can also take the water you clean your cycled filter in and pour it into the new filter media. Almost instant cycle that way too.