How Much Mature Media?

[indigoj]

If you have read any of my other posts about my big tank you'll know I plan to sterilise it after losing fish.

I have a 100l/3ft holding tank for the 3 fish that are still in there (and healthy) but they are big fish. (2x 5" kissing gourami, 1x 16" clarias)

What I'd like to do is sterilise the tank and filters then let them dry out but then I want to be able to put the fish back in. I can take some mature media from my 5ft and 4ft tanks and a member here has also offered me some media so I should have a reasonable ammount of bacteria to kick start things but will it be enough?

The tank is 6x2x2 and the filters are an fx5 and an aquaone 1200, I can also add a couple of internals but these would not have any mature media in.

What are your thoughts? Could I get away with adding the fish back in or not?

 

[minxfishy]

Providing you use at least 1/3 mature media, you should be ok to put the fish back in after sterilisation, Obviously the more mature media you use the better, you may need to do extra water changes for the 1st week or so to allow the rest of the media to catch up on bacteria, so keep an eye on your stats

 

[indigoj]

hmmm... need to find a bit more then.