Major upgrade

[Fishyfish33]

Ok so for the past few months I have had a 6.5 gallon tank running with on giant danio, 2 black mollys, a bubble eye goldfish, and a kuhli loach. Yes I know it’s over crowded that’s not why I’m here I have that one managed well and do regular water tests and changes of at least 1 gallon weekly.
My question is I just bought a 75 gallon tank with marine land 360 bio wheel filter along with a top fin 60 canister filter running at half speed I have not added fish yet I have added api quick start and the stress coat since it’s supposed to dechlorinate as well. I also put in a few freeze dried shrimp to produce ammonia to get the cycle started. Am I missing any to start a successful cycle of the new tank? I’d like to get it cycled as quickly as possible In order to get the fish out of the small tank and into the new one.

 

[Flyfisher]

Hi Fishyfish33,
You have the theory correct but I am not sure if a few freeze dried shrimp will rot into enough ammonia to start the cycle let alone produce enough ammonia to imitate the daily poop load / bio load of a tank full of fish or even half a tank of fish. Should you be successful in getting ammonia from a few freeze dried shrimp you will only grow a limited number of bacteria. A good start no less. We should be adding roughly the same amount of dry food as we would to feed a tank load of fish each day. It will not rot into ammonia for a few days but each day more and more is added. No more than 4 ppm of ammonia in an uncycled tank or you may poison the living bacteria.
This will sound silly but never the less. Next time you routinely clean the filter in the 6.5 gallon . Wash the dirty filter into the new filter or as close as possible. The nice new tank will get some real true bacteria from some of this rinsing. Don’t worry about the colour of the water in the new tank the filter will pick up what does not settle onto the gravel.
If you have dirty gravel to spare add a little of that to the new tank. Put it in a ladies stocking/ sock if you don’t want that colour. An old ornament will also transfer some real live bacteria as bacteria lives ON all hard surfaces.
An Australian would call a 6 inch king prawn a shrimp. Some countries call a 1 inch cocktail prawn a shrimp. You need something big and smelly. Again I am not sure if you will get much ammonia from a freeze dried anything. Only a water test will tell you if you have ammonia in the tank . Also cheap to see if you have ammonia or nitrates in your tap water.

To speed up cycling you can run the tank a little warmer than you would for tropical fish . ( say 29 centigrade?) You can also run the water a little low (2 inches) so you get plenty of splash from a HOB filter. Not miracles but it might help a little.

Now to confuse you a little. Sorry.
You could move all the fish all the little filters or cartridges/ foam/ sponge inserts . Move all the ornaments all the gravel and all hard surfaces to the big tank . The little filter running beside the big new filter. It’s up to you to consider this idea. Ask around but it’s what I would do.

 

[Fishyfish33]

I did put one decoration from the little tank into the new one however I doubt there was any bacteria left on it. Bit of a long story with that but to make it short it was washed in hot water for a bit after coming out of the little tank then sat for a day before going into the new tank. Since my first post I did add more food to the new tank in the form of shrimp wafers meant for bottom feeders about twice the amount I would normally use to feed the fish

 

[SaraB]

I would just move all the fish /decorations over and do a fish in cycle. They would love the extra swimming space.
That's what I did when I upgraded from a 20g to a 55g. The cycle didn't take very long because of all the older stuff.

 

[fearlessfisch]

Agree with SaraB. I would move everyone over now, and just run the old filter on the new tank beside the new filter for a month or so (or transfer all old, wet media directly into the new filter).



Just make sure you are testing water frequently and doing changes as needed until you're sure you're cycled without spikes.

 

[Fishyfish33]

That is what I ended up doing I tested the water yesterday just using the strips and was showing just .25-.50 ppm ammonia so I put the filter media from the old tank in with the new filter. Up til this point I had left the old tank running with no fish because I wanted to keep the bacteria on the old filter alive until I started showing ammonia in the new tank. I’ll be testing the water daily with the api master kit now until I’m certain the cycle has completed.

 

[Fishyfish33]

Just used the master kit to test the water 7.6 ph
.5 ppm ammonia
0 nitrites
5.0 nitrates
Correct me if I’m wrong but this means the cycle is going well right?

 

[SaraB]

Yes it looks like it

 

[Flyfisher]

Yes it looks good, but check your tap water for nitrates please.

 

[Fishyfish33]

I checked the tap water a few weeks ago and everything was zero using the api kit. With the old aquarium it took almost a month before nitrates showed up and my setup with the 75 gallon is not complete yet I plan on adding a couple live plants within the next couple weeks to help take care of nitrates plus I’m sure the fish will love them and I’m not a big fan of having all artificial decorations