Looking To Start Up My Brother Tank

[Smart_Blue]

what would the best way to cycle my brothers new tank?

Should I - Put his filter in my tank for a week or two (running alongside mine)?
- Cut a 1/3rd of my filter media and pop it in his filter and run his tank?
- or something else....

It took me 6 weeks to cycle mine from scratch and I dont think he'd be up for that...

Cheers

 

[minnnt]

Speed it up with some media from yours.

 

[Dan-CR4]

+1 on sharing a little of your media to kickstart his cycle off.

 

[minnnt]

In fact if you have the time then seed his filter with your media and then run it in your tank so it multiplies quicker.

 

[KittyKat]

what would the best way to cycle my brothers new tank?

Seed with 1/3 of your media, then continue fish-less with household ammonia.

Put his filter in my tank for a week or two (running alongside mine)?

This takes 6 weeks on its own.

Cut a 1/3rd of my filter media and pop it in his filter and run his tank?

This allows him to add 1/4 of your current stock relatively safely, assuming his tank is about the same volume, but he should wait at least 2 weeks before adding any new stock and only go or 1-3 fish at a time, assuming he has an average small tank.

In fact if you have the time then seed his filter with your media and then run it in your tank so it multiplies quicker.

…but this would mean that Blue would be removing 50% of his cycled media when it is done, but won't have 200% of current bacteria by then.

 

[minnnt]

Why does it? How would adding a 1/3 of cycled media equate to 50%? And what does the 200% mean? Just sounds like gobbledegouk to me...

 

[fluttermoth]

If you added a 1/3 of the mature media to the new filter, then ran the two filters in tandem, when he moved the new filter to his brither's tank, he'd be losing 50% of the bacteria needed for his fish, as the bacterial colony would be split between the two filters. The amount of bacteria depends on the fish load, so you wouldn't get enough bacteria for both tanks (the 200%).

 

[minnnt]

Still doesn't make sense to me...

 

[KittyKat]

If Blue starts with one filter and adds one filter then they have two filters. If they then remove one filter, they are removing 50% of the number of filters, which is most likely going to be 50% of the media from the aquarium.

Blue's current filter contains *some unknown* amount of bacteria, this is 100% of the bacteria it currently contains. When they add another filter, they are (most likely) doubling the surface area inside the filter. Blue is not doubling the amount of ammonia going into the water, so no matter how long they run the filters in parallel, they will not double the number of bacteria on both filters (2* more bacteria = 200% of original number of bacteria).

But anyway, reading back, this isn't a suitable option because Blue's sibling does not want to wait the 4-6 weeks that it would take for the bacterial colony to grow and spread when running both filters in parallel (regardless of the seeding, it would still take that long to get the optimum number of bacteria out of one tank and two filters).

 

[fluttermoth]

Oh

 

[minnnt]

Still over my head...

 

[KittyKat]

Oh

Hey, you said the same thing as me, just shorter

Sorry minnnt, I can't explain it any simpler than that…

 

[Smart_Blue]

ok ok, this 100% and 200% thing doesn't add up to me?

Lets say I have 1 million 'bits' of bacteria in my filter. I add another filter for a period of time ( with 1/3rd of my media inside to allow the new colony to grow )

Eventually... wouldn't there be two lots of 1 millions 'bits' of bacteria resulting in 2 million...?

or does the total 'amount' of bacteria all depend on how much 'food' they are getting via ammonia etc....

but then, doesn't that contradict the theory of 'over filteration'......

Discuss

 

[Louiseness]

ok ok, this 100% and 200% thing doesn't add up to me?

Lets say I have 1 million 'bits' of bacteria in my filter. I add another filter for a period of time ( with 1/3rd of my media inside to allow the new colony to grow )

Eventually... wouldn't there be two lots of 1 millions 'bits' of bacteria resulting in 2 million...?

or does the total 'amount' of bacteria all depend on how much 'food' they are getting via ammonia etc....

but then, doesn't that contradict the theory of 'over filteration'......

Discuss

Like you said, the amount of bacteria that grow are dependant on the amount of food via ammonia/waste they recieve.

So what people are saying is that you can only have 100% bacteria for the whole tank, because that is how much can grow given the amount of waste.

If you have two filters, that's spread 50/50 between the two - it doesn't grow to 2 x 100% (I guess unless you double the numbers of fish in your tank as well but I wouldn't suggest that!)

 

[KittyKat]

ok ok, this 100% and 200% thing doesn't add up to me?

Lets say I have 1 million 'bits' of bacteria in my filter. I add another filter for a period of time ( with 1/3rd of my media inside to allow the new colony to grow )

Eventually... wouldn't there be two lots of 1 millions 'bits' of bacteria resulting in 2 million...?

The number of bacteria depends on the ammonia which goes into the tank (and the surface area of the media). So if filter 1 currently has 1 million bacteria (100 %), filter 1 + filter 2 (in the same tank) will never have 2 million (200 % of original) bacteria, it is more likely that filter 1+2 will contain only 1.2-1.4 million (120-140 % of original) bacteria (for example, I am making up the numbers here).