Few Questions About Seeding New Filter, And What Media To Use

DaveA76 · Jun 3, 2011

right ive a few questions about seeding a new filter, ive just bought a new fluval roma 240 which comes with a 305 external, i will be setting this up and when its upto temperature i will be putting in 1 of my mature fluval 3+'s after an hour or so i shall start adding the fish a couple at a time over the following 3 days, does this sound ok ?
i have a total of 3 mature internals, 2 x fluval 3+'s and a aquaflow 200 now how many of these should i put in the new tank ? and for how long ? all these mature filters will be available after the last fish has been moved over as i am consolidating my 2 x 100L tanks into 1
so really to sum it up how long will it take to clone the new externnal and would it be benificial to keep an internal running alongside the external full time, i will be keeping the filters just incase something ever goes wrong in the future with the external then i always have a back up and was thinking that if i ran an internal and external full time and either went wrong the tank wouldnt crash while sorting out a new filter

the next question i have is what media is best to run in the new 305 external as i have no experience with multi media filters because all ive ever used is sponge in internals, its not a special set up and the fish in the tank are bolivians, kribensis, zebra danio's a few barbs and bristlenoses, thers are also a few livebearers(a molly 2x platies and a juvi femaile guppy) ?

thanks
dave

fluttermoth · Jun 3, 2011

If your putting all the fish from your other tanks into the large one, you can do it this way; set up your new tank, get it planted up and the (dechlorinated!) water up to temperature. Put all the media from all your filters in the new one and switch it on and check it's working. Move the fish.

Or move the media from two filters into the external and move one filter over in its entirety and run it as a back up; my friend does that in case she wants to set up a breeding or quarantine tank.

Do test carefully and often for the first few days in case you get a mini cycle; if you do it will be only a day or two until the bacteria catch up.

As for media; well you'll have the sponges from your internals in the bottom so more sponge and ceramic rings is what I'd suggest.

DaveA76 · Jun 4, 2011

is this the only way to do it or has anyone else an opinion ?

fluttermoth · Jun 4, 2011

The thing is; if you just move the old internals into the new tank, they already house enough bacteria to proccess all the waste from your fish; there won't be any 'spare' ammonia going for any new bacteria in your new filter to feed on, so you'll get hardly any bacterial growth in it, as long as you're running the internals.

Also, the bacteria cling quite strongly to the media; they don't get swept round the tank, so you won't seed the new filter that way either; that's why old media has to be put in the actual filter, and not washed out or hung in the tank or any of those methods.

There might be another way, but I can't think of one! I'd be interested in anyone else's point of view though