Mighty Prawn Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 Just curious, how much media is ideal for a sump to grow bacteria? I will have my sump as a standard 55 gallon tank. So far I have bought 2 boxes of bio balls, is this enough? I'll also have a big slice of sponge in there, probably 8 inches thick, as wide as the tank and to the water line. The last chamber will be empty aside from a heater. Should I bother with anything else like carbon or whatever? Are "ammonia" removers functional? Since I'm jumping up from a 55 gallon to a 180, it's not going to be easy to "jump start" my cycle, is it? I was hoping there would be enough bacteria growing on my gravel etc to help at least a little, but other than that, how quickly would the bacteria grow if I add my 2 cycled bio max inserts from my current 55 in there? I'm thinking maybe it will also help if I put some of the bioballs in my tank right now, and by the time I get the tank hopefully it's got some nice bacteria growing on it. Is this futile? Will I have to cycle this new tank from scratch? Having more and more and more bioballs, will that just make things better the more I have? Since it helps breaks down things, wouldn't it in theory do this faster and better the more bacterial colonies exist? School me! -Hideo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
street cypher Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 Theoretically, if you transfer all filters, decor and substrate, you sould be able to add fish in right away without having any spikes. The amount of biofiltration is relative to the bioload in the tank. So, if you transfer all the stuff from the 55 to the 180 and add the same fish then nothing should change. I did that with my 55-180 transfer. Added all the filters, substrate and stuff and then threw in all the fish without considering cycling at all. No matter how much media you put in the 55g now, it will still be proportional to current bioload. So, if you stuff your tank with sponge, lava rock , ceramic rings, it won't let you add more fish to the 180g. I hope i made some sense. For the W/D i'd suggest nylon pot scrubbers from you dollar store. If the media will be submerged i suggest lava rock or ceramic rings. http://www.wernersponds.com/biofiltermedia.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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