Jewel Rio 125 To Fluval 240 Tank Move Questions?

[Overcooled-xp]

Hello all,

Currentley got a rio 125 tank which has been running for years. I recentley got a Fluval 240 tank for free and want to move all my fish from the 125 to 240 tank. I have set the new one up and have got some sand in it and two Fluval 2 plus filters in it as I can't afford to buy one big filter to do the whole tank. I have been told that two fluval 2plus filters (upto 90 litres each) and the external will be more than good enough which is a Aqua one Equiss 750 (upto 150 litres). I have taken the old filter pad out of my current external and placed it in both new filters too.

I have only filled the new tank up about 3 quaters with the hope of taking the old water out of my old tank when I do the move.. is this ok?

Also I have only put 1 bag of argos play sand in and it really needs some more, is it ok to add later when ever I want to?

when would you move the fish to the new tank as I cant move the external across till the fish are out of the old one and in the new one? or is it worth moving a couple of fish into the new one to speed up process?

I just want to make sure I do this properly as I don't want to loose any fish in this process.

Sorry to bombard with loads of questions. Also sorry for my spelling today,

Tim.

 

[waterdrop]

When you have a stable population of fish and a mature filter that's taking care of them, the two are in balance with each other. The size of the two bacterial colonies in the filter will have settled to match the bioload of the particular group of fish.

The filter and the fish can be moved together as a pair. The old filter can be placed on the new tank and the fish moved to new dechlorinated temperature-matched tap water in the new tank. The old water itself is not of particular importance, its the filter colonies that are important. The bacterial colonies would then be expected to gradually shift to 1/3 size in each of the 3 filters that would then be running on the tank - this would take place over a period of months. Probably 4 to 6 months would be a very safe time to allow. After that the biomedia from the old one could perhaps be added in to the two new filters and the old filter could be cleaned and stored as an extra filter.

If you decided to instead move the old media out of the old filter and in to the new filters then there is a slight risk that the disturbance to the colonies might create a cycling situation. If you do it that way you have to consider, for safety sake, that you may be in a fish-in cycling situation and behave accordingly. Our Beginners Resource Center has an article by rabbut explaining the fish-in cycling situation. Basically you need a good liquid-reagent based test kit and you need to test daily and be prepared to do large water changes with good technique to ensure that your fish are not exposed to too much ammonia or nitrite(NO2).

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

Great advice WD. Moving the fish and filter together means no cycle is needed. The filter contains most of the beneficial bacteria that have been dealing with fish wastes in an established tank.