How Do You Transfer Filter Media?

[Bazaman]

ok i'm new to the whole cycling thing i have read up how. i have currently have a 55 gal tank that has been set up now for several months. and it is cycled(i have tested the water with my master kit) i have set up 2 new tanks a 10gal quarantine/hosptial tank and a 20 gal tank that i am going to use for fry. people keep saying to use filter media from a filter that is being used on a tank that has been cycled to help speed up the cycle. i have 2 filters on my 55 gal so want i want to know (stupid question) what is old filter media and how do i go about transfering it over too my other filters on my new tanks? Thank you before hand for your patience with a newbie.

 

[fluttermoth]

Old filter media is anything that lives inside your filter that can grow a bacterial colony on it. So it could be sponge, bioballs, ceramic rings, anything like that.

Take 'some' (but no more than a third, or it'll affect the balance of the donor tank) media and put it in the new filter. Try and get it into the 'in' side of the filter rather than the 'out' side, as that'll help the bacteria spread through the new filter.

That, in effect, gives you a fully cycled new tank ready to go; you can either add fish straight away (no more than the media was already supporting though; so if your main tank had 20 guppies in it, and you took a quarter of the media, you could add five guppies to the new tank) or do a fishless cycle to 'prove' the media is working properly.

 

[Bazaman]

Thank you very much. its very nice to have that explained. time to set-up the fry tank, i have 2 mom platies getting close to giving birth.

 

[fluttermoth]

I forgot to say; it's good idea to feed sparingly for a few days and test the water parameters daily in both tanks, just to make sure there's no 'mini-cycles' where the bacteria die back a bit before recovering, but that doesn't happen very often.

 

[Bazaman]

ok thank you.