Bacteria In Gravel

seangee · Feb 23, 2008

Hi all

This morning I moved my fish and their filter media to a new tank. It was impractcal to run the filters side by side. The old tank is 70 litres and had

6 cardinals
3 platies (2 female)
5 little platies (pretty small but too big for fish food)
4 guppies (3 female)

One of my the guppies obviously dropped a load last night as there were far more tiny guppy fry than I expected - as well as some bigger guppy and platys that I did expect. So I have left the fry where they were as I will need more fish for the new tank as well as some for the old tank.

I moved most of the bio media (all that didn't go was a couple of rings I dropped in the tank) to the new filter and left the old filter sponges and gravel. I have removed all the plants and decs. Will this be enough to re colonize the filter without having to go through a cycle?

geo7x · Feb 23, 2008

Although the tank is not mature and is undoubtedly more unstable because of this, the amount of media that you have transferred is enough to get the tank going without an ammonia or nitrite spike. Should be fine

backtotropical · Feb 23, 2008

Sounds like you have done enough, but not moving the filter sponges over could prove disastrous depending on their volume as compared to the ceramic rings.

Keep an eye on ammonia and nitrite reading for a few days to be sure, but you should be fine.

If you do get any ammonia / nitrite spikes, counter them with large water changes.

Good luck. :good:

BTT

seangee · Feb 23, 2008

backtotropical said:
Sounds like you have done enough, but not moving the filter sponges over could prove disastrous depending on their volume as compared to the ceramic rings.

Keep an eye on ammonia and nitrite reading for a few days to be sure, but you should be fine.

If you do get any ammonia / nitrite spikes, counter them with large water changes.

Good luck.

BTT

seangee · Feb 23, 2008

backtotropical said:
Sounds like you have done enough, but not moving the filter sponges over could prove disastrous depending on their volume as compared to the ceramic rings.

Keep an eye on ammonia and nitrite reading for a few days to be sure, but you should be fine.

If you do get any ammonia / nitrite spikes, counter them with large water changes.

Good luck.

BTT

16 hours on and no trace of ammonia or nitrite in either tank. Have fed the fry twice today and the new main tank once. Last test was about an hour after the feed. Will obviously keep testing but at least I can sleep easy tonight.

backtotropical · Feb 23, 2008

Good to hear it mate. Keep an eye on ammonia and nitrite for the next few days and if none appears, i'd say you're all clear.

Always good to see a successful tank transfer. They all too often go wrong (usually down to bad advice from the LFS) but you've obviously done your homework.

Cheers :good:

BTT

rdd1952 · Feb 23, 2008

In answer to your original question in the topic title, there is actually only a very small amount of nitrifying bacteria in the gravel. The vast majority of the bacteria are in the filter so you have moved most of it over (depending as BTT said on the progression of he different media). It taks about 24 hours for the bacteria colony to double in size so the bacteria should catch up soon enough if it only fry in the tank.

seangee · Feb 28, 2008

Good news is that the old tank is coping just fine so far. :good:

The new tank has started a mini cycle. :sad:

After 5 days (yesterday) I suddenly got a nitrite reading of 0.2- still zero ammonia. After a big water change I got a lower reading tonight (0.1) and also a trace of ammonia (not enough to show up on the scale but the colour of the water did change).

Will have to keep monitoring until everything stays at zero