Cloning A Filter And Pantyhose

[celaeno]

i want to clone a penguin 100 bio-wheel filter from an existing one by hanging both on the back of the 20 gallon tank. how long do you think it would take enough bacteria to form on the bio-wheel to support a breeding pair of 1.25" apistos and several fry? i will be transferring the apistos and cloned filter to a 10 gallon.

also, what type of pantyhose is safe to use in fish tanks to cover the filter intakes?

 

[nosoup4you]

When you asked this earlier, I thought that you meant cloning by seeding with existing media...

 

[Honeythorn]

If you have a fry tank it would probably be safer to use a sponge filter. They are used worldwide in fry tanks so that they can't be sucked into any sort of intake ( seeing as a sponge filter has no outer casing ) . A brand new filter of any sort should take the usual amount of time to cycle if you just place it in the tank next to another one. Which is just over a month . If you transfer some media from the old filter to the new one to kickstart it, it should hopefully take a little less time.

 

[petertr]

I know nothing about bio-wheels - but I guess there is a bio-wheel in there (obviously) but Id assume there is some space for other media, such as ceramic chips or sponges.

If so, take half of this media and put it into the other filter, then run them in parallel.

This will significantly speed up the time it takes to cycle.



Remember though, when you remove the 2nd filter, the 1st filter will only be able to handle half of the bio-load - it will catch up very quickly though, but extra water changes will help

 

[OldMan47]

A few weeks should be enough but a month would be safer. For fry in tanks, I use a sponge filter element as a prefilter on the end of my inlet instead of pantyhose. It is a lot less likely to plug up and easier to maintain. Just cut a slit in the end of a filter sponge and slip it over the filter inlet covering the cage on the filter tube.
This is the raw filter sponge

and this is one in place