Barracuda-m Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 I have about 6 weeks or so til I set up my 230 gallon, and this is what I plan to do for cycling........tell me if its stupid or not. I have 2 established tanks, a 61 gal and a 29, and I was going to use the water removed during water changes to cycle. (vacuum the substrate using a clean receptacle to catch the water, strain all the poop and mulm out of it, put the chunk-less water into the big tank, along with fresh water. I also plan on using one of my nasty filters, uncleaned, with dirty filter media , and run it on there for a couple of weeks. Does this sound ok to do? I plan on putting some of my fish in my main tank into the new one, so the water should be the same in both tanks that way. I also some of the decorations that I got for the big tank put into my 61 gallon. Its crowded in there right now, but they have oodles of places to hide, and the decorations should be nice and scummy by the time I switch out to the new one. Input, please! I gave it some thought, and this is all I came up with, I hope it works Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanker Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 The water itself has very little of the 'good stuff' in it... but ya... a scummy filter and some of the substrate from the old tank will pretty much do it. Your new filter will pick up the bacteria charge from the old filter and will run away with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neely Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 The water itself has very little of the 'good stuff' in it... but ya... a scummy filter and some of the substrate from the old tank will pretty much do it. Your new filter will pick up the bacteria charge from the old filter and will run away with it. Pretty much what i was gonna say. the bacteria lives on things- ie, filter media and sand. Stuff multiplies like crazy so that tank will have little time to cycle. Why wait 6 weeks? lets do this now, want to see pics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barracuda-m Posted January 3, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 hehehe, patience is a virtue! We have to tear down the half wall, and put up the proper one first. THEN set the tank up. I wanna get it up and running so bad, my @$$ aches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RD. Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 If you're getting your water from the following source http://www.woodbuffalo.ab.ca/residents/ser...ter_quality.asp then there's an additional way to increase your bio bacteria while you're waiting for the new tank to be set up. Massive water changes, as often as you have time to perform them, while using a water conditioner such as Seachem Prime, Seachem Safe, ClorAm-X, etc. With tap water that's been treated with chloramine each water change adds an increase in ammonia, and while the water conditioners mentioned above will safely bind the free ammonia, your bio filters are forced to utilize the additional ammonia. The end result is a major boost in the bio bacteria on anything that they can attach to. IOW one could establish a large filter on a small tank, with only a few fish. I've done this in the past (we have chloramine treated water here) and it worked like a charm. Two AC 300's on a 20 gallon tank with 4 fish in the 1.5" range, and in approx 2 months the bio bed in the two filters had grown large enough (with 3-4 50% weekly water changes) to safely house 13 adult fish that were 3+". No cycle, no spikes in ammonia or nitrites, the tank was perfectly balanced the moment the fish hit the water. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Chicklets Posted January 4, 2007 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 I've used partial w/c water and new water along with dirty media from an established filter and had a tank ready in a week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishBrain Posted January 4, 2007 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 Or you can salt the water and add a bunch of live rock and let it do its own thing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edmguy Posted January 4, 2007 Report Share Posted January 4, 2007 (edited) I've used partial w/c water and new water along with dirty media from an established filter and had a tank ready in a week. ive had sucess doing this method and having a perfect up and running tank instantly (say a 25 gal tank with 15 gal from a up and running tank/ 10 gal new water) with no loses.............ever Edited January 4, 2007 by edmguy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcookcan Posted January 5, 2007 Report Share Posted January 5, 2007 I've used partial w/c water and new water along with dirty media from an established filter and had a tank ready in a week. ive had sucess doing this method and having a perfect up and running tank instantly (say a 25 gal tank with 15 gal from a up and running tank/ 10 gal new water) with no loses.............ever I have always done the same thing, with no losses. The only difference is that I only use water from the w/c. I make sure that I squeeze out the sponges from the established filters into the w/c water before it goes into the new tank. I never bother to get rid of the big chunks of poo from the gravel vac either - food for the new filter. So the new set up looks like crap initially. 24 hours later, all the bacteria squeezed out of the sponge are now in the new filter and the water is clear and ready for fish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RD. Posted January 5, 2007 Report Share Posted January 5, 2007 I also plan on using one of my nasty filters, uncleaned, with dirty filter media , and run it on there for a couple of weeks. Considering the fact that Barracuda is going to be running an established filter on this tank from the get go, adding water from an established tank serves no purpose. For the most part the only thing that used tank water will add, is dirty water. The amount of bio bacteria in the established filter, as well as the bio load from the fish, will determine how quickly the new tank balances out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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