Did I Seed With Dirty Gravel Correctly?

[frogmarch1987]

Yesterday I got some dirty gravel from my LFS to seed my new tank. (the gravel was from a tank with an undergravel filter I think, so it could be considered as filter media rather than gravel.)

When I got home I added some of my tank water to the bag of gravel, gave it a thorough hard shake and poured the (very) dirty water into my tank. I did this 4 or 5 times, and each time the water from the gravel was really dirty, before throwing the gravel in the bin.

However upon reading up on the subject today (a bit late now ) I see that most people recommend putting the gravel in some tights and suspending in the water.

Was my method ok to use? Would I have got most of the bacteria off of the gravel with my vigorous shaking or did most of the bacteria end up in the bin when I threw the gravel away?

Thanks for any help you can offer

 

[BigIan]

What you did was beneficial, but not ideal.

suspending the gravel in the tank would have not only added all the bacteria you added with your shaking, plus any more that was on the surface of the gravel.

So, no harm done really

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with Ian, beneficial but not ideal.

I think you can picture that old, mature, well-established autotrophic bacterial colonies appear as nothing more than a brown stain on surfaces like lighter-colored gravel. Not even scrubbing the piece of gravel with a tough brush would necessarily get the brown stain off. These are the "bacterial reproduction factories" (my made-up term for illustration only) capable of producing visible NH3 and NO2 reduction on our test results, I feel.

When these "factories" loose their single-celled "babies" (again, another made-up term to illustrate only, as the new cells are identical but young) to float away, the babies will certainly attach to bits of debris, the more solid the better. It is when a number of those bits of debris sit together near a hard surface, as when a filter catches a bunch of particles and leaves them sitting there next to a ceramic, plastic or sponge surface or whatever, that they will (over weeks) begin to colonize together, exuding their rich biofilms and beginning the process that eventually produces the actual "factory" structure (little calcium channels and all) and results even later in the dark brown stain of a mature colony. Even once the colony structure becomes efficient, the actual cell division process is slow for these two species, as compared to most bacterial species.

WD

 

[OldMan47]

Your discarded media is what had the biological film growing on it. By merely cleaning the gravel in water, you have probably dislodged some of the bacteria and it is now in your new filter. That is a small bonus to your cycle but is nothing like the start you would have gotten by actually placing the gravel in a bag in your new filter.

 

[frogmarch1987]

thanks for the replies everyone. I'll see if I can get some more off of my LFS and do it properly this time