New tank advice

[Conrad]

I've decided to buy myself a small tank as I'm not having luck with my GBR spawning. They have spawned twice in two months and havnt had any luck with any hatching. The first time I tried a floating hatchery but the eggs turned white within 2 days and the second time, the eggs disappeared when I woke up on the third day. How long will I have to wait for the tank to cycle before adding a pregnant mum and the male? Will it help if I fill the new tank with the water from my other tank?

 

[Rutrag]

You'll help yourself out by adding a handful of gravel or used filter media from the other tank to seed the new one. You could induce a cycle with a little ammonia or a piece of shrimp to be 100%.

 

[jondamon]

There is no set time to how long a tank will take to cycle.

Unless you use a source of ammonia you will not be able to cycle the tank.

It's not fill it up with water and run your filter for a week as most LFS will tell you to do.

I used laboratory grade ammonia from work to cycle my tank.

Other ammonia sources are rotting fish food, rotting shrimp. But by using these you can contaminate your tank.

The other alternative is a put a few of your hardier fish in and perform a fishin cycle.


Another possibility is to use some of your media from your existing filter in the new 10g filter but run the 10g filter in your 95litre tank for around 2weeks which should kick start the colony of BB inside the new filter.

Then add water to your 10g tank and use the new filter once it's been seeded in the existing tank.


Hope all that makes sense.


No real point in using your existing tank water as very little BB is in the water column.


Jon

 

[Conrad]

Great il just add a bit of gravel from the other tank and give it a couple of weeks before adding the pair, thanks

 

[jondamon]

Great il just add a bit of gravel from the other tank and give it a couple of weeks before adding the pair, thanks

If you do this and wait a few weeks the beneficial bacteria will have died off and you'll risk poisoning your fish with the waste that accumulates from them.


Jon

 

[Conrad]

Great advice as always Jon, thanks mate

 

[jondamon]

Great advice as always Jon, thanks mate

No problem.

Just make sure that once your new filter is "seeded" with your old filter media that you run the 2 in your existing tank for a while to help that BB Colony establish in the new filter.

After the 2 weeks of tandem running in theory you should be able to add your new 10g filter into your 10g tank with water and fish and hey presto it should be a fully cycled tank.

This is the reason I ALWAYS have my fluval U2 internal filter running in my 200litre tank along with my 206 canister. A ready made filter for my 10g quarantine tank should I need to quarantine any fish.



Jon