Lots Of Mature Media Into New Aquarium?

tim1 · May 3, 2008

Here is the deal.
I have a 10 gallon which is currently going through the cycle. Ammonia is currently around 1.0, Nitrites off the chart. I have 2 cheap live plants, and some gravel. Temperature is currently at 81F. I am using an AquaClear hang-on filter which says that max. gallon size is for 50gallons. I also have a 20gallon filter which I am not using. I am going to transfer everything except the gravel to a 25gallon aquarium once the cycle is done.

My question is if I should take out a lot of the sponge from my other aquarium(it currently has 2 big sponges in it, and thats it), and put it into my second filter and get that filter to run as well. I already have some mature media in the 50gal filter, but I'm thinking that another filter with only mature media will progress the cycle faster, or am I just dreaming?

I don't know, maybe it will screw everything up when I change aquariums, as I will not be using the 20gal filter in it, only the 50gal. I need some advice please

rabbut · May 3, 2008

Just cycle the filters that you will be using, or you will remove bacteria after you finish you cycle and remove the second filter, and that can of defeats the object :shifty:

Note also, that the filter will be cycled for the size of tank it is already in, so you should look to run it in the larger tank for a few days while adding ammonia, to boost the bacteria clonie number sufficiently for your tank :good:

HTH
Rabbut

waterdrop · May 3, 2008

rabbut said:
Just cycle the filters that you will be using, or you will remove bacteria after you finish you cycle and remove the second filter, and that can of defeats the object Note also, that the filter will be cycled for the size of tank it is already in, so you should look to run it in the larger tank for a few days while adding ammonia, to boost the bacteria clonie number sufficiently for your tank

HTH
Rabbut

Rabbut, that's an interesting statement and got my attention because I was thinking about it some during my ordeal with Oliver's broken tank. I had to run my cannister filter, which had been fishless cycling on a 28G, on a 2 gallon bucket for several days while I got a replacement tank.

I knew that about 4 to 6 drops of my ammonia would put my 2 gallons up to about the 4ppm level of ammonia, so that's what I did, once a day. I was so busy that I didn't take a lot of ammonia readings (it was certainly zero each morning) but I kept wondering whether the sudden change in water volume from 28G to 2G would have an effect on the feeding of the bacteria. I kept thinking about how I had been putting in, like, 12 droppers full of ammonia to get the 28G up to 4ppm, whereas now I was only putting in less than a dropper's worth. The solution percentage was the same, 4ppm in each case, but it seems obvious that the total amount of ammonia available to the bacteria in a 24 hour period was quite different. The RDD article, IIR, recommends doing ammonia adds once a day and doesn't refer to a tank size, but to a strength of ammonia. Tank size does play a role, doesn't it? In my case, I'll bet the two gallons of water was depleted of its 4ppm of ammonia much more quickly than the 28G of 4ppm was and that in that extreme case, more frequent additions of ammonia would have been necesssary to maintain the large population that the filter already had. Does that make sense to you?

tim, sorry to hijack your thread, it was just that rabbut's phrase "will be cycled for the size of tank" got my attention...

~~waterdrop~~