using established water

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abomb

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Feb 25, 2004
Messages
57
Location
Milwaukee WI
will using water form an established tank along with a filter from an established tank instantly cycle a new tank?
 
No, but it will help speed things up a bit. We call it "seeding". If you add a bit of the substrate material from an established tank youd be moving things along nicely.
 
youronlysin is right -- it's a good thing to get some filter material, substrate, or "brown water" (from squeezing a sponge) from an established tank. When I did this, it took my new tank seven days to reach 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite. It is not an instant cycle (your experience may vary!) but it does speed things along nicely, and my ammonia never went over .50 ppm during this week. I still did 20% water changes every day, but that's better than starting from "scratch" and getting very high ammonia readings!
 
If you do enough seeding of bacteria you will cycle a tank. let suppose we have a 29 gallon set up and running. we just went and bought a nice new 5 gallon. If you take all the gravel from one tank 1/2 the water and sediments, seed the filter heavily with filter media and gunk that little 5 gallon will hold a couple of fish instantly.

So you could say YES! ;) it is possible to seed a tank with enough bacteria for it to hold a small bio load and never show ammonia or nitrite.

Ive done this with two 2 1/2 gallon tanks. they never had to cycle and held a few fish from day one.
 
actually, the water itself holds very little bacteria...it's the surfaces in the tank and filter that hold bacteria. using a cup of gravel from an existing tank, rocks, decorations, plants...this all helps. also if you happen to have bio wheels you could take a used one and put it on the new tank - or aquaclear filters, you can run 2 sponges in the filter, then pull one and put it in the new tank.

its still not an instant full cycle...but it does give you some bacteria to start with, which means you could add a small fish load after a couple days...then slowly stock the tank with a few fish each week (really depends on the tank size, type of fish, etc...but you get the idea)
 
Actually you can pour the gunk in there and put fish in as soon as you want ;)

When I did my 2 1/2 gallon the tank was basically fog after about an hour it cleared up and I added 2 fish. The tank never showed signs of ammonia or Nitrite and would be considered cycled. The thing thats makes a tank cycled is when there is enough bacteria to hold the bio-load in the tank and convert the wastes.

Anytime you add new fish to a tank your bio load basically has to do a mini cycle if theres not enough bacteria. But if you added some seeded material the same time you add the new fish you would help your tank adjust to the new bio load.


One thing you want to watch out for is stripping to much bacteria from one tank to help another. This can lead to the old tank going through a mini cycle.
 
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