Setting Up A New Tank With Media From An Established Tank....

[toomie]

....and I was wondering how long until I can add a fish (a betta?) The media is actually the filter media for the new tank. I have had it floating in an established tank for over 2 months now. So when I set up the new tank, is it still going to cycle? Am I still going to have to check the water stats and wait for the ammonia to spike, the nitrite to spike, etc? Or do I just set it up and add fish?

 

[alchemist]

Put the media into the new filter and then follow the normal fish-less cycle procedure of adding ammonia to 5ppm and waiting for it to drop. Hopefully you have some good bacteria on that media so you will not need to wait weeks for it to drop away. If all is good you should see some nitrite and then nitrate fairly quickly. What is important is that you have an ammonia source of some sort when you move the media into the new filter. I would not recommend putting new fish in until you are sure your new filter is cycled properly.

 

[OldMan47]

That filter media would be better spending its time in the old tank's filter than just floating around in the tank. It may get a very small seeding by doing what you are doing but it will still need to be cycled. Can you swap some of the media from the old filter with some in the new filter? That would do a lot more good in terms of greatly shortening the cycle time on the new tank.

 

[toomie]

I guess the only reason I didn`t run a second filter in the established tank is because it is only a 5 gallon, and I have a male betta in it, and I was afraid of the pull from 2 filters being too much for him, especially since the other filters are for 10 to 30 gallon tanks. I`m not sure if the bio filters I have floating in his tank would actually fit into his filter or not, as they have a plastic frame around them. I will check on that. I do have an extra live plant in his tank that I will also move to the new tank, so that should help.

Thanks for the replies!