My Husband Is A Genious Lol

[Dieses Madchen]

So, I have all these extra filters for small tanks, and they do nothing but sit in storage. Well, my hubs suggested having a constant tank in fishless cycle with these little filter just for the sole purpose of establishing media for larger tanks. I was like holy crap, that is an awesome idea.

So now I have a little 10g tank with two filters running. Dosed to 5ppm of ammonia. There is absolutely nothing in the tank but water, and it looks kinda dumb sitting in the corner completely empty, but hey, in the event of a tank problem or emergency situation, I have established media.

And in the event of a really bad situation, I have a tank that can easily be emptied for use as another hospital tank.

 

[Baccus]

Makes perfect sense to me, but my biggest temptation would be to add some plants to get them established either before adding them to a tank or to revive them after the fish have eaten them half to death...then with some plants in there the other temptation would be ummmmm what shrimp can I have in that tank?

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Makes perfect sense to me, but my biggest temptation would be to add some plants to get them established either before adding them to a tank or to revive them after the fish have eaten them half to death...then with some plants in there the other temptation would be ummmmm what shrimp can I have in that tank?

My biggest temptation is not to have another 10g betta tank

Right now, it is just an empty tank with water and ammonia....but man I want to drain it and add some female bettas and plants hehe

 

[Tolak]

Most often people run spare filters on stocked tanks for this purpose.

 

[Juggler75]

Ready made hospital or quarentine tank too

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Ready made hospital or quarentine tank too

That was the other thought. In an emergency, we have a quarantine tank, all we would have to do is take all the water out and we have a hospital (after adding fresh dechlorinated water

 

[This Old Spouse]

Most often people run spare filters on stocked tanks for this purpose.

That's what I do. I have extra media in all the filters.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Most often people run spare filters on stocked tanks for this purpose.

That's what I do. I have extra media in all the filters.

The funny thing is, this idea came about because my husband is impatient. When we buy new tanks, he doesn't want to wait 4-6 weeks to add fish. He wants it fully stock the moment we set it up. I tried to explain to him that you cannot fully stock an uncycled tank and blah blah blah..so he says, why can't we have a tank constantly in fishless cycle for the sole purpose of establishing media? I said I dunno.

So now, next time he brings home a large fish tank on a whim for me, I will have media established to take out 5ppm so that it is not a pain in the tuckus when he brings homes random fish that he did no research on lol

 

[Tolak]

There's ways of doing it, within reason, with a filter or media from another tank. As long as you aren't going to try cloning a fully stocked 55 from a 10 or some such starting up a new tank with mature media is not a big deal, even with a heavier stocking on the newly setup tank.

We can use your 75 gallon for an example. You've got 4 fish, that produce about equal amounts of waste as adults. 1/4 of the filter media will support 1 of them, regardless of the filter or tank it's running on. The bacteria colony in a mature filter is capable of doubling every 24 hours.

Knowing this, you can take a new 75 gallon, 1/4 of the media from the existing 75 gallon, and add two new sev's. Double up with a dechlorinator that neutralizes ammonia, a large water change every other day for a week with light feeding, & it's good to go. You can do the same with 4 new sev's, water changes & light feeding for 10 days, once again, good to go.

Mature media is the key; running stable for a good 6 months at least. This is how people with a tank understocked with 10 small fish add 100 small fish. Shops pull this off all the time when new stock comes in. In my own tanks I've noticed that the mature bacterial colonies go dormant, and bounce back really quickly when there's an increase in the food source. I've personally done the 10 to 100 countless times, 20 to a few hundred in a 150 gallon tub on occasion. I've helped friends who get thousands of fish shipped in, a couple dozen styros & an airport pickup, doing just as I described. There's water changes involved, but not what you would expect from cycling a tank from scratch.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

There's ways of doing it, within reason, with a filter or media from another tank. As long as you aren't going to try cloning a fully stocked 55 from a 10 or some such starting up a new tank with mature media is not a big deal, even with a heavier stocking on the newly setup tank.

We can use your 75 gallon for an example. You've got 4 fish, that produce about equal amounts of waste as adults. 1/4 of the filter media will support 1 of them, regardless of the filter or tank it's running on. The bacteria colony in a mature filter is capable of doubling every 24 hours.

Knowing this, you can take a new 75 gallon, 1/4 of the media from the existing 75 gallon, and add two new sev's. Double up with a dechlorinator that neutralizes ammonia, a large water change every other day for a week with light feeding, & it's good to go. You can do the same with 4 new sev's, water changes & light feeding for 10 days, once again, good to go.

Mature media is the key; running stable for a good 6 months at least. This is how people with a tank understocked with 10 small fish add 100 small fish. Shops pull this off all the time when new stock comes in. In my own tanks I've noticed that the mature bacterial colonies go dormant, and bounce back really quickly when there's an increase in the food source. I've personally done the 10 to 100 countless times, 20 to a few hundred in a 150 gallon tub on occasion. I've helped friends who get thousands of fish shipped in, a couple dozen styros & an airport pickup, doing just as I described. There's water changes involved, but not what you would expect from cycling a tank from scratch.

neat to know. I am currently cycling some media at the moment, seeded from my 40g in this tank my husband though of. I am going to use some of the media in my 55g, when I finish stocking the mbunas. Hopefully I will not have to worry about nitrite spikes that way. right now I am doing daily water changed after the additions of my new malawis, but it is catching up fast. So far the nitrites have not gone above .5 for more than an hour, but holy crap, changing water on a 55g sucks! what was i thinking, moving on the bigger tanks lol and malawis are messy as goldfish

 

[Tolak]

Hoses & pumps are a godsend for moving lots of water frequently. I use buckets for odds & ends, mostly filter cleaning, drip acclimating & so on.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Hoses & pumps are a godsend for moving lots of water frequently. I use buckets for odds & ends, mostly filter cleaning, drip acclimating & so on.

My husband actually bought me a water pump and I LOVE IT!! Plus my larger tanks are in the basement (its finished so its more like a game room) so i hook the pump to a hose and run it to the drain in my laundry room. then I use the faucets for the washer to refill. Its been lovely, but having to do it everyday. I checked the params this morning and had 1 ppm!!! So here I am doing a large water change at 6am....oy the joys of loving fish lol. But they are so worth it.

 

[mrp3]

Definitely worth every ounce of love and energy.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Turns an hour of tank maintanance into a 15 minutes. Def. worth it as I am having a slight nitrite problem.

 

[mrp3]

My fry tank is having a very small ammonia problem nothing major though. Just 0.1 ppm so I'm sure everything will be ok. If my adults were fine in 4 ppm when I didn't cycle my first tank I'm sure it'll be fine.