Filter Question

[Dorkhedeos]

after the ammonia and nitrites fall back down to 0, just cut a chunk of your old filter floss or if you have a sponge, just squeeze it into the other filter. this should cycle the other filter

 

[ICEEGRL]

LOTS OF PLANTS!
From what I have learned... if there are enough plants there is little need for the cycle. The plants pretty much handle the spikes before they are a problem if you are not over stocked.
Also prime is great! As mentioned before... get some. It works!

 

[Dorkhedeos]

prime smells funny though

 

[chibi]

Okay, I bought some stuff called Cycle Biological Aquarium Supplement from the Hagen company. I put it into the tank. I also squeezed out my sponge from my filter and dumped some filter water from my 29 gallon into the 10 gallon's filter. This made the tank flood with nasties of all sorts, but I think it's good. I bought a plant, too. Should this help out?

 

[rdd1952]

The Cycle is pretty much useless. None of the off the shelf bacteria in a bottle products really do anything. The only product that seems to work is Bio-Spira and it has to be refrigerated at all times.

The water from one tank won't help another tank cycle. There is only a very minute amount of bacteria present in the water column. Plants help with the process by using ammonia before it is transfomred but a single plant probably won't be albe to use enough to matter.

 

[Lynda B]

prime smells funny though

smells like old lady's sneakers.....

 

[MHunt]

Harhar, I humor myself with my lame titles...

Mmkay, I have a friend who has a 10 gallon tank. It was disgusting! There was algae caked on the sides, horrible calcium deposits, and God knows what in the filter, heater and gravel. Well, I went outside and scrubbed and cleaned it for an hour. Now it's sparkly clean! However, she gave me this task. She's off to Florida for a week and is coming back Saturday. I need to get it all ready to put fish in.

This is what I did. I filled it up with water from my 29-gallon, which has been up for almost 2 years. I also switched the filters so my tank's filter filtered the 10 gallon and hers filtered my 29-gallon. I thought this could not only super-filter the 10-gallon, but get some more good bacteria into her filter. I changed it back today.

Anyway, do you think this would work? Will it be okay for fish to live in? Have any suggestions as to what else I can do to make sure it's ready?

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EDIT: Okay, here's my filter question. How can I take the filter out and safely get it to my friend's house without killing the bacteria? Should I put the filter media in a zipblock bag full of water? Will that be okay? I have to drive 10 minutes to her house, so it's not that far away. I was planning to take most of the water out and put it in large, 3-gallon zipblock bags, then fill it up all the way with her tap water (treated of course). Does this sound okay?

Saving the water from her tank isn't that important. All you really need to focus on is preserving the bacteria in the filter media. Your idea of keeping it in the tank water in a zipper bag is ideal. For the sake of 10 minutes you'll be fine. Mine is sometimes out of the water for 10 minutes of more when i do a water change so if kept in the tank water it should be fine. Just make sure you do treat the new tapwater you use peoperly and you'll be fine.

I bet it's been a frantic couple of days, but hopefully you've got through it ok!