Mature Filter

[Aqua Tom]

A friend of mine has a new coldwater tank & he has been running his old filter in the tank for a few weeks with the new one & the new one has, in his words, "taken".

He has very kindly given me the old filter & that is now in my tank running alongside my new one. Hopefully this will give my cycle a big boost.

Awaiting tomorow mornings test with baited breath.

 

[anwhyte]

A friend of mine has a new coldwater tank & he has been running his old filter in the tank for a few weeks with the new one & the new one has, in his words, "taken".

He has very kindly given me the old filter & that is now in my tank running alongside my new one. Hopefully this will give my cycle a big boost.

Awaiting tomorow mornings test with baited breath.

it should help.

 

[anon02]

In my opinion the 2 filters will work as independent units, and your filter will still need to cycle, but if the bacteria in the mature filter is undamaged then I would expect it to take over the job of keeping your tank safe

 

[Aqua Tom]

Having a rethink now, maybe ill just put a shedload of the mature media into my filter. The other one is waaaaaay too big to keep in the tank anyhoo.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, anon is correct. It can take an extremely long time for autotrophic bacteria to migrate from one mature filter running on a tank to a different filter running on the same tank. Its surprising how independent they remain. After a really long time, way after both are behaving as cycled filters, they will balance the load so to speak (each will carry half the bacteria needed to service the bioload of fish.)

~~waterdrop~~
ps. not only put a bunch of the mature media in to your filter but also squeeze or otherwise clean the remaining media directly in the new tank you are cycling so that the debris from it will get picked up by your fitler - this stuff will get in to your new filter very evenly.

 

[Aqua Tom]

I have put a load of mature media into my filter, the rest I have just chucked in the tank. I have taken the other filter out all together now.

Fingers crossed.