cycling my 10 gallon tank

[sansouci01]

Had to move my crayfish from my 55 gallon community tank to his own 10 gallon tank. ( my fish were starting to look tasty to him ) The tank is going through its cycle. My cray is looking a little stressed so I have been doing water changes every day to keep the ammonia and nitrites down. Will the tank properly cycle even if I do water changes daily. Don't want to kill my crayfish with high levels of ammonia and trites.

 

[tamtam]

yes, you absolutely have to keep those water changes up during a cycle. In generally fish ins usually take longer than fish less but there are things you can do to help. Are you able to get some seeded media from your 55 to put in the ten? This would really help out.

I would recommend you check out these articles if you haven't seen them yet

Fish-in Cycling: Step over into the dark side - Aquarium Advice

and I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?! - Aquarium Advice

Good luck!

 

[sansouci01]

used 5 gallons of water from my 55 to start the 10. I have sand substrate and used some of that from my 55 for my 10

 

[tamtam]

used 5 gallons of water from my 55 to start the 10. I have sand substrate and used some of that from my 55 for my 10

The sand should help a little but the water really doesn't have much BB in it. The best bacteria "cling" to surfaces, which is why filter media is so great.

 

[paytertot]

Agree, if you can take a little piece of the media from a filter on the 55 and put it in the filter of the 10, that will greatly help.

What are your current parameters?

And yes, it is very important to keep ammonia and nitrites as low as posible, .25ppm is good, so you very well may have to do daily water changes to keep them that way.

If you can't do the filter media thing, even a piece of decor or something from the 55 will help a little. You can also go to your lfs and ask for a piece of media from one of their cycled tanks, but you have to be careful because if their fish have a disease or infection, it will end up in your tank. I did this for my 36 gallon, I just made sure I went to an lfs I trust and inspected the fish in the tank first. It's pretty much just as risky as buying fish without a quarantine tank. Which I also do. Lol. Not recommended but hey I get by.

Anyways, if you have any more questions, we'd all be glad to answer

 

[sansouci01]

I'm changing the filter media today so I will give that a try...thanks

 

[paytertot]

You are seeding the new media before removing the old media, right?

 

[sansouci01]

I have an emperor 400 hob filter. do you mean taking a piece of the old filter off and putting it on the new filter?

 

[JillyBean]

Had to move my crayfish from my 55 gallon community tank to his own 10 gallon tank. ( my fish were starting to look tasty to him ) The tank is going through its cycle. My cray is looking a little stressed so I have been doing water changes every day to keep the ammonia and nitrites down. Will the tank properly cycle even if I do water changes daily. Don't want to kill my crayfish with high levels of ammonia and trites.

My crayfish just ate his 1st fish from my tank,

 

[sansouci01]

now he knows what they taste like...lol it took mine 3 months before he ate one of my fish

 

[paytertot]

I have an emperor 400 hob filter. do you mean taking a piece of the old filter off and putting it on the new filter?

If you mean for the new tanks filter, yes. But if you're talking about replacing your existing media, you need to put it in the tank somehow for a little while to seed it before removing any existing media. Every time you throw away filter media, you are throwing away bacteria. That's why you only change some at a time. I personally don't change filter media unless the old media is like falling apart.

 

[JillyBean]

now he knows what they taste like...lol it took mine 3 months before he ate one of my fish

Haha, he didn't even eat it he just killed and then The poor thing floated to the top of the tank. I've only had him a week. I don't wanna get rid of him & I don't have another tank to put him in. I'm assuming he'll do it again though right? What type of fish do yours with?