Help With Cycling (kind Of)

[NoRp]

ok guys just brought what i thought was a small fishtank turns out i did my calculations all wrong, anyway i ended up with a 20 gal hex tank instead of the 5-10 gal i thought it was going to be. wait let my get back on subject

i have a tank thats been cycled for over 6 months now and this new tank ive cleaned out the new filter and placed it into my old tank. now i wanna get this new tank setup as soon as posible, in the old tank i have the built in juwel filter. i was thinking, in say 3 days time could i take the new filter put it in the new tank along with one large peice from the juwel system? but not inside the new filter just in the tank. would this be a problem in any of the tanks??

wow i know this was quite complictaed so heres a sumary
long story short

can i put a new filter thats been in a cycled tank into a new tank one after 3 days?
with some large rocks (or maybe gravel more surface area) nad it instantly be cycled.

also when you have a diesed tank how do you go about cleaning it?
i was thinking of using a highly diluted bleech solution and wiping with a slightly soapy cloth.

geez im far to tired and far to drunk to be posting so im sorry anyone who sufferd through reading this.
please answer tho as i dont want to lose my fry.

 

[fishdawg]

u would use a part of the juwel media. if it have some as im not familer with juwels. but i would wait a good week befor moving the filter.

 

[Tommy Gunnz]

I think on principle, you can accomplish what you want to using the method you described, however I would also think that a longer period of time would be better to wait before you put the new filter back on the new tank.

You can also clone the new tank by just simply putting some of the biofilter media from the old tank into the new one and skip the whole filter switching thing entirely. If you were able to remove the filter from the old tank, I would have suggested that you just put the new filter on the old tank and old filter on the new tank for a good month or so, but it sounds like that is not an option (I am not very familiar with jewel systems either).

However, and this may be a good thing for your circumstances, is that not all of the bacteria is in the filter media and can be transfered from tank to tank on, like you point out, rocks, decorations, fake plants, and especially from the substrate. Basically anything in your tank minus just the water since not much of the bacteria would be simply swimming around.

I have cloned a tank one time by putting a bunch of the substrate from an established tank into a new one and then 'feeding' it with either flake food or by dosing pure ammonia. If you do not want both tanks to have the same substrate, you can get yourself some pantyhose or even a filter bag from some filter systems and fill it with the substrate so that you can remove it later on when your tank is ready. (You should have the substrate you want in the new tank as well during this process since it will harbor bacteria for you) As long as the new tank is set up the same as it will be when you have fish in it, meaning that it is heated, conditioned with dechlor chemicals, and the water is oxygenated properly, the bacteria will thrive and reproduce as long as you give them a food source (ammonia, typically) is some form or another.

Hope this helps!