How Much Seeding Matieral Should I Have Used?

[chokko]

Hello
How much seeding material is required, to instantly fishless-cycle a 400L tank ?
I seeded my fx5 with bag of bio-noodles, and a 20x20cm piece of filter wool, from one of my existing tanks.
New filter matieral also added: loads of bio noodles, fine filter wool and a few bio balls.
Water was de-chlorinated
I put approx 2-3ppm of pure ammonia in the tank.
pH has been above 7.6 whole time (i.e. off the chart for the low-range Ph API test)
I confirmed this morning with the high range kit, that the pH is 8.2
Temperature fluctuating between 29-31degrees
No plants
Sand substrate
.
Majority of water surface is agitated by spray bar, but i've also put two large airstones in.
.
After 4 days of the filter running, I have seen no drop in ammonia.
Nitrites and Nitrates obviously are zero.
.
Before starting the filter, the water had sat in the aquarium for a few days, whilst i was testing for leaks, constructing my PVC spray-bar etc. Could the water have lost vital nutrients that the bacteria need, whilst the water was sitting in tank un-circulated?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Not sure about that? What about chloramines? Did you dechlorinate that water, or did you just leave it be to gas off?

What's your kH? Seems like it should be fairly high, but I figured I'd ask anyway.




As far as how much you should take to seed the new tank... How much bioload is on the tank you took the material from? 400L is a sizable tank. If your other tank is only 50L, then just a pinch won't bring much in the way of bacteria... although it should bring some and I would imagine you'd see something happening.



I did this recently myself. I have a 55USG tank at home, and am starting a 110USG tank at work. I took about 25% of the media from my home tank - which is fully stocked, and have had great results. It took a few days, but it started turning over 1ppm ammonia immediately, now it is turning over 3ppm daily. Next week I'll be looking to bump it up to 5ppm by the end of the week - fish are coming a week from Tuesday. ;-) Small stocking level for that tank to start (24 bloodfins and 12 corydoras).

 

[CezzaXV]

It depends on how many fish were in the donor tank. Say there were six cardinal tetra in there and you took a third of the media, it should in theory be cycled for two cardinals or similar sized fish.

 

[chokko]

ah didn't realise i had responses in this thread.

yes, was de-chlorinated.

in case i wasnt clear at the start:

I filled the tank (may not have been dechlorinated at this point)
Sat there for a few days (Whilst checking for leaks etc)
Then i hooked up the fluval fx5, put the donor material in, and water was definately dechlorinated at this point, (if i hadnt done it intially).
Ran it for a week...posted my OP
Drained tank, filter was off for about 24hrs whilst i was painting back of aquarium black
Ran for 9 days
Finally (today) after about 17 days...i see a NitrIte reading.

donor tank was 170L, with about 14panda cories, 6pepper cories and a few ember tetras (So somewhat over-stocked)

depressing remembering how long the nitrite->nitrate takes