Hello. Good Question For You Guys

[Ficious]

i currently am out of control and bought my 5th aquarium. my room holds all 5 of them now and my newest one is a 20 gallon. i bought it today and after rearanging my room filled it with water. the filter is a marineland 150 powerfilter. it filters 150 gallons per hour.

getting down to business

my biggest tank is a 36 gallon and it has two 30 gallon filters running. both filters are matured and im wondering if its ok to use one filter pad for my new tank. ill put the new filter in the one i took the old one out of.

does this count as cycling my tank?? my new filter has a biowheel but some filters dont have biowheels.

should i take out the "bio" material from the matured filter and add it to the new one as well??

please let me know if this is ok. i figure i wont have an ammonia spike in my 36 gallon because it already has excess filtration. would geting rid of 1 filter be so bad (it use to run on 1)? i do tri-weekly water changes in it and hope my fish will be ok.

i probably forgot some questions i had but oh well, i appreciate your time



...also would 1 GSP be ok in the 20 gallon?? ill end up trading him in by the time he reaches 6 inches

would two 2 inchers be ok? (im gona guess probably not)
how many dwarf puffers could i put in it?

 

[SJ2K]

Ok, as far as the cycling goes, do as you said and just stick some mature media straight in the new one and add fish Keep your eye on the water stats for both tanks and you should be fine. As far as the puffer stocking, im assuming you know which will need brackish and which freshwater etc. A GSP should be ok in a 20g I believe if its alone, if you want to go with DP's then 5 no problem.

 

[JenCliBee]

swapping the media over is fine may well cycle nearly instantly but i would get a bottle of ammonia and add the recommended dosage per day for a week and just mke sure the ammonia is depleating correcting within the 12 hrs if so then yes ur ready for fish, if ur in no hurry 2 stock then this probably will be the safest way of doing it and also better for the fish just incase u get a mini cycle or an ammonia spike. better 2 be safe than sorry IMO


jen

 

[Ficious]

excellent guys thanks! great advice...things seem stable but ill wait before adding to be safe

 

[fish are friends....]

You could put on GSP in there.
Also you could have about 5-6 dwarfs as long as it is heavily planted. Although they are great fish, they are hard to see in a larger tank because of their size.

 

[tangokitty]

I would just keep a good eye on the tank and add 1 fish. If you let the media sit with out any thing feeding it ie ammonia or fish waste, it will all die and be useless to you.