Cycling Using Sediment From Another Tank

[neverquit]

I have a well established 10 gal and I'll be setting up a 100gal in a couple of weeks...I've read about using the filter sediment from an established tank to cycle a new tank. So my plan is to rinse out the sponge filter in a bucket every week and keep the sediment until the new tank is setup. A couple of questions:

1. Will the bacteria live in the bucket for a couple of weeks? Yeah, sounds kind of stupid, but want to do it right.

2. How much of the sediment will I need?

3. After I add the sediment how long do I wait before adding fish? What about live plants?


Thanks
Neverquit

 

[chrisrm]

Welcome!

I thing what you are talking about is seeding a filter by using filter media from an old filter to establish a new bacteria colony in a new filter.

in answer to your first question the bacteria will not survive for a couple of weeks in the bucket.

as to the volume of 'sedement' you would need is obviously not an issue as it would contain dead bacteria!

lastly im not sure that there would be enough bacteria present to stock a 100g from a 10g filter i think you would be best off 'seeding' your new filter with either old midea or as this link shows (which i have done and it worked for me) and going into a fishless cycle (link). plants can go in stright away.

 

[neverquit]

Welcome!

I thing what you are talking about is seeding a filter by using filter media from an old filter to establish a new bacteria colony in a new filter.

in answer to your first question the bacteria will not survive for a couple of weeks in the bucket.

as to the volume of 'sedement' you would need is obviously not an issue as it would contain dead bacteria!

lastly im not sure that there would be enough bacteria present to stock a 100g from a 10g filter i think you would be best off 'seeding' your new filter with either old midea or as this link shows (which i have done and it worked for me) and going into a fishless cycle (link). plants can go in stright away.

 

[Geoff-]

filter sediment won't do anything, and after 24 hours in a bucket it'll start to die let alone 2 weeks. the bacteria need a steady diet of fish waste and oxygenation of the water to survive.

use the old filter material to seed the new filter, and transfer your old fish into the new tank and DON'T add more for a few
weeks until the new filter establishes. You can then take the old filter material out and put it back in the first tank if you want to have both running in tandem.

 

[neverquit]

Welcome!

I thing what you are talking about is seeding a filter by using filter media from an old filter to establish a new bacteria colony in a new filter.

in answer to your first question the bacteria will not survive for a couple of weeks in the bucket.

as to the volume of 'sedement' you would need is obviously not an issue as it would contain dead bacteria!

lastly im not sure that there would be enough bacteria present to stock a 100g from a 10g filter i think you would be best off 'seeding' your new filter with either old midea or as this link shows (which i have done and it worked for me) and going into a fishless cycle (link). plants can go in stright away.

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate the two links...The video was interesting and the other link has pretty good step by step instructions. So if I use some filter media from the 10 gal will that help the cycling? What about the live plants, will that help or hinder the cycling proces?

Thanks again
Neverquit

 

[neverquit]

filter sediment won't do anything, and after 24 hours in a bucket it'll start to die let alone 2 weeks. the bacteria need a steady diet of fish waste and oxygenation of the water to survive.

use the old filter material to seed the new filter, and transfer your old fish into the new tank and DON'T add more for a few
weeks until the new filter establishes. You can then take the old filter material out and put it back in the first tank if you want to have both running in tandem.

Okay, thanks. It seems to be there's more than one way of cycling a tank! Just this part alone is interesting!

Neverquit

 

[waterdrop]

Geoff has mentioned the core answer to your questions: you need to take advantage of the mature media in your current tank by using it as a "mature media seed" in the new filter or tank in some direct way. The way he's mentioned is one way but there are others.

If you are intent on bringing the current fish over in to the new tank and don't mind a slow introduction (2 or 3 medium small fish every two weeks or so) of the further stocking then the method mentioned should work.

If you don't want those fish to move over or you become interested in the learning aspect of doing a mature media seeded fishless cycle in order to learn more about the core skill of biofilters (yes, I'm suggesting this is a good idea for anyone wanting to round out their basic skills in the hobby) then the way to go about that would be to move a maximum of 1/3 of the biomedia (usually the main sponge or ceramic bed of a filter, as opposed to the floss pad or the big ceramic rings or carbon) over in to the new filter, putting it just prior to the new biomedia in the water path inside the filter. Sometimes you have to be creative about this (using scissors on sponges for instance.)

You then perform a Fishless Cycle, using the help of the members here who will watch your cycling log and comment. There are several articles to help you get started. At the end of the fishless cycle you can do a very large stocking of fish, depending on what is available at that time and of course which species don't require a tank that is even more mature (some species do.) A fishless cycle with mature media can often finish in a week or two, although that isn't guaranteed. You can even give the new fishless cycling tank a further boost by literally cleaning out the established filter in the new tank as if it were a cleaning bucket (this is actually similar to the original advice you heard about using "sediment") however it is really the fact that you will have already "seeded" the filter that will be the main advantage.

~~waterdrop~~