2nd Tank Being Delivered Tonight,

[umpsfar]

How quick can i get the second tank up and running?
if i fill water up from my 1st tank and move some gravel and media across?
should be up an running immediatly ? no?
anyone have any sudgestions?

I defo have the bug...
I only have my 1st tank 5 months and now look whats happened,
after the purchase of an african clawed frog(ops silly me). my pearl gourami bullying my dwarf G , my tiny little yellow angel joining in .
And my guppies having babies.. i'm in need of a bit more room before my girlfriend goes on the rampage to stop pearl, and breaks my tank.
and 2-4 months of gruppies in a hatchery aint nice for them .
im expecting a 2nd hand tank with heater, filter, some gravel too, its 70 litre clear seal tank.

I suppose i will have to wait to see exactly what arrives tonight.

\o/



145 litres

Blue Dwarf Gourami
Gourami - Pearl (what a bully)
2 Angels ( 2 and a 1/2 inches high)
1 Angel ( + 4 inches high)
2 Guppies ( 1 female )
2 black tetra\'s

new members
1 Cichlid apisto of some kind.
1 Bristlenose Catfish
1 African Clawed Frog

 

[waterdrop]

Unless you have been prepping an entire extra filter, there's no way to immediately start a second tank and be sure that you are not damaging the fish.

Ammonia, even in small amounts, causes permanent gill damage. Nitrite(NO2), even in small amounts, causes permanent nerve damage because it destroys the hemoglobin cells in fish blood. It takes between 3 and 6 weeks or longer to grow the necessary 2 species of bacteria to form a working biofilter and therefor have a working filter.

In your case, with a mature previous filter available, you can use up to 1/3 of your previous biomedia (safely) to "seed" the new filter. You just replace the 1/3 you take out with new media of the same type of course. In the new tank, with the 1/3 seeding media from the old tank, you then proceed with a fishless cycle (same as outlined in our reference article by rdd1952 in our beginners resouce center) but you can expect and hope that it may proceed much more quickly because of the bacterial seeding. Once the new filter can drop 5ppm of ammonia to zero ppm ammonia and zero ppm nitrite(NO2) in 12 hours or less then your are ready to "qualify" it for a few more days and then do a large water change and proceed to introduce fish.

~~waterdrop~~