Cycling A New Filter But Not In The Tank

[fourthtimelucky]

So... I am making plans to get a bigger tank fairly soon (Yay!!!)
But... I am in the middle of redecorating my flat, and don't want to set it up until I've finished.
BUT...My filter should be arriving first.

So I was wondering if I could put my filter, a heater, and some of the substrate I intend to use in a bucket, then cycle it (fishlessly!) in that.

Obviously the bucket will be a lot smaller than the tank I intend to use the filter in, but will that present any problems? I figured that as it is the filter that cycles not the tank it shoudn't be an issue -- but just wanted to check.

 

[england]

cant u add the filter to exsisting tank you have?

 

[fourthtimelucky]

I thought of that, but the filter is a Fluval 2 and it would be going in a very small (5g) hex... I think the high flow would disturb my guppies too much! I would just swap old media in, but the tank is going through a mini-cycle after a bit of a fish-sitting disaster (my fish-sitter caused it, not I sat on a fish!) so I don't want to risk taking too much. Hence the bucket cycle.

 

[england]

well i supose you could do..nevr heard if you can or cant....fishless cycle....have you got a mate with a bigger tank who could do it for you

 

[OohFeeshy]

It will work, but not very well. Don't forget the bucket has a much smaller volume than the tank, so if you add a proportional amount of ammonia, you won't get many bacteria, rendering the process pretty pointless. You might as well hang on then fishless cycle the bigger tank- you'll get far more bacteria in the same amount of time.

 

[fourthtimelucky]

Right... that was the bit I wasn't quite getting. I thought that the size of the bacteria colony depended on the amount of food it got... hadn't really thought about how the water volume would affect it too.

My only other option is putting it in my friend's goldfish tank but not sure how cycled their tank is. Hmm.

Hopefully by the time I get the new tank set up my existing filter will have re-cycled itself so I could always add that to the big tank at the same time as the new one (as I transfer the fish)

I wish there was an easy way of figuring all this out.. like "Xcm2 of cycled filter sponge will support X amount of fish" ! That would be very handy.

 

[rdd1952]

It would work at least to get a start. Obviously, if you cycled it in a 5 gallon bucket, you would only have bacteria for a 5 gallon tank so when you moved it to the permenant tank, you would still need to finish the cycling by adding more ammonia but it shouldn't take but a few days for the bacteria to multiply enough to cover the larger tank. If you choose to try it, I would only cycle it wth about 2 ppm of ammonia so that it doesn't take forever to cycle in the bucket. The main thing is to build a decent amount of bacteria s seed for when you move it to the tank.

One thing you would need to be careful of is that you don't let the water get too low and cause problems with your heater. If the bucket isn't covered and you have the temp in the upper 80s, you will get a lot of evaporation so you will have to top the tank off with dechlorinated water fairly regularly. You could probably get a bucket with a lid on it though and just cut holes for the intake and outlet to ut down on the evaporation. Also be careful that the heater doesn't touch the side of the bucket and melt a hole in it. I don't think that wuld happen but you never know.

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

Generally one of the big advantages with fishless cycling is that you can fully stock the tank after it has completed since 5 ppm of Ammonia per the volume of water would represent an extreme overstocking of the tank. Since a bucket will have a smaller volume (and thus a smaller amount of ammonia) you wouldn't be able to fully stock right away, but you should be able to stock a few fish safely after transferring the filter to the tank...you'd just have to build your stock slowly to avoid overwhelming the existing colony. IMO if you fishless cycled in a bucket with the recommended dosage of 5 ppm Ammonia, I would guesstimate you would have a bacterial colony that could support 2-3 inches of fish per gallon of the bucket, although to be on the safe side you may want to cut that in half.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Ah, yes, that was another disadvantage I was thinking but forgot to mention. There's evaporation, but also airbourne contamination if there's no lid (from dust, chemicals etc) which aren't too helpful.

 

[fourthtimelucky]

I was planning on clingfilming the bucket, with pinholes to let air in but hopefully keep nasties out.
I suppose I have to decide whether I am going to fully stock the tank straight away or just put the three guppies in to begin with...

 

[rdd1952]

As I mentioned earlier, the filter definitely wouldn't be cycled for a fully fish load for the tank size but for a 5 gallon (or what ever size you use) bucket. But even at that, you could finish cycling the filter for the full tank when you set it up. If the new tank is 50 gallon for instance and you have a filter cycled for 5 gallon, it would only take about 3 days for the bacteria to multiply enough to cover the new water volume. Just start raising the ammonia to 5 ppm in the 50 gallon and proceed as if the filter had been in there the whole time. In 24 hours, the bacteria would double to handle 10 gallon. In another 24 hours, enough for a 20 gallon and in another day, enough for a 40 gallon. And you shouldn't see the huge nitrite spike since there will be enough bacteria present from the start to keep up with it. That's still a lot quicker that starting from scratch once the tank is set up. Then you would be looking at 3 or 4 weeks instead of 3 or 4 days.

 

[fourthtimelucky]

Thanks rdd1952! That's a really good idea, I think I'm going to do that. It'll probably take me three days to fiddle around with the plants and stuff anyway.

It's all joining up in my brain now. I'll let you know how I get on.