Cycling Fry Tank

[Larry_the_lobster]

I just purchased a small tank to put my fry into to grow them on. I need to cycle the tank on my bigger 3ft tank I did not know much about keeping fish and basically cycled the tank with fish. I now know a lot more and have learnt that such actions are too great an idea . I set the tank up added water (from from my old tank/filter) and switched it on I added a good helping of some spare flakes I had laying about.to produce amonia and am wondering how long I have to wait before the filter is cycled enough to start putting my fry into the little tank. I have heard that the cycling process can take 36 days is this correct or can anyone esle shed a little more light on the time it will take to get things ship-shape. Thanks in advance.

 

[Skadunkadunk]

Cyclying can take anywhere from 4-12 weeks, as long as yo don't mess with the water to much, and are patient wih cyclying, it shouldn't be that long. What you can do to cycle the tank faster is take some gravel (about a handful or two) from your cyclyed tank, and put it into the fry tank, which will help the tank cycle faster.

 

[Tolak]

Just run the new smaller filter on your established tank for at least a couple of weeks. The smaller filter will be cycled, and can be added to the smaller tank when needed. This is called cloning, I do it all the time with angel fry. There is no need to cycle the smaller tank, just the filter.

 

[Larry_the_lobster]

Thanks I'll give that a try

 

[Xebadir]

Definitely Clone the tank: Run the filter in the cycled tank for a week or two, do a water change and use 25-50% of water from large tank in fry:bingo you are cloned. Or you can duplicate filter media.

 

[jtnova13]

that's what cloning is!? hehe i did that by accident to my 20 gallon tank hehe, I was just lazy and didnt want to cycle my tank again so i just reused stuff