How Long Does Good Bacteria Take To Transfer/grow On?

[shelaghfishface]

hia
i put the media out of a matured filter into ontop of a trickle filter sponge( so that the water is running over the two of them)

wait i have done a drawing,effort of a thing, so you can see what i mean, i cant find the camera batts anywhere,so i hope you will see what i mean

i could really do with having the mature media back, to put in with the platys that i " rescued", so whats your opinion ( not on the scribble!)

cheers in advance
shelagh xxx

 

[Colin_T]

The minimum time you want to leave the sponge in the new filter is 24 hours. The longer the sponge is in contact with the new filter the more bacteria will be able to spread onto it.

can I give you an opinion on the scribble

 

[shelaghfishface]

its a work of art colin!!! lol

oh thats ok then as its been in there for almost a week, so i can have it back

 

[Underwurlde]

Convoluted way of doing things IMO.... All you have to do is cut about 20 to 25% off of the mature media from the old filter and add it to the new filter (yep, loose 20-25% of the new filter media so that the mature filter media will 'plug the gap'). Put the mature filter back in & plug the gap with new media - don't worry too much about reducing the media to 75% that it was, it will very quickly recover & the impact will be absolutely minimal.

24hrs to 48hrs later, new filter should be pretty much 'mature', as long as there is fish in your new tank of course.

This way you can stock to say 70% of max stocking in your new tank / filter setup pretty much immediately, give it a week and complete to 100% stocking (assuming the tank sizes are similar of course).

Andy

 

[shelaghfishface]

ok, the tank is simialar in size and its a fry tank ( 35-40),i cant see a way of replacing the media with the mature media tho unfortunatley, as they are totally diffrent, and if i did that the mature one would be of no use ( size wise ) in the old filter,anyway from what colin has said think its pretty much sorted, but i will certainly bear your instructions in mind for the next time i find myself in this situation, thankyou

shelagh xxxx

 

[Underwurlde]

Ah, gothca, different media types...

bummer that...

Different types can still be 'mixed' though. All this filter media stuff does is provide a large surface area for the sessile bacteria. You can sill bung ceramic balls / hoops / tubes etc. in with sponge type media & vice vera....

GL with your experiment though - I love it when people have to think out of the box (literally in your case!)

Andy

 

[Colin_T]

GL with your experiment though - I love it when people have to think out of the box (literally in your case!)

she can draw pretty pictures too

I usually buy a couple of spare filter sponges when I get a filter. Then if I need to take some filter material from a filter I can chop it as suggested by Underwurlde, and replace the cut part with some new filter sponge. They are the same size and shape and you just use a pr of scissors on them.

But your tank should be fine now so you can move the old filter sponge back if you need to.

 

[shelaghfishface]

lmao,good thinking! ( why didnt i think of that)