New Small Tank For Fry

[Rowie6]

Hi Santa bought my son a new tank for his baby fish and was just wondering when i do a water change of his main tank and add that water to his little 40 litre tank how long will it be till we can add all his baby fish or how long will the cycle be if we use water already cycle?.

 

[attibones]

The water will not contain the bacteria to cycle a tank. You need to use ammonia to cycle first. The ammonia will cause nitrifying bacteria to form which convert ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to less harmful nitrate which we remove in a water change. So if you add water from the main tank to the fry tank, all you are doing is adding water loaded with nitrate, meaning you would need to do a water change on that tank.

 

[AshleyNZ]

I second that the water has no bacteria. If you take around 1/3 of the established tank's current filter media, and some plants or decorations (Bacteria stick to SURFACES, not very much if any, in the water)
But even if you add filter media you should still not put fish in, continue process as you would a normal fishless cycle (Add ammonia, as Attibones said) and only then slowly add fish to the tank. Hope this helps.

 

[Rowie6]

I second that the water has no bacteria. If you take around 1/3 of the established tank's current filter media, and some plants or decorations (Bacteria stick to SURFACES, not very much if any, in the water)
But even if you add filter media you should still not put fish in, continue process as you would a normal fishless cycle (Add ammonia, as Attibones said) and only then slowly add fish to the tank. Hope this helps.

Thanks heaps Ashley,i added some rocks from the bottem of my other aquarium and placed them in a stocking and added them to the new tank a few days after set up it has been running around a week and these are my water parameters,PH 7.6
                                                                                                                                            AMM 0
                                                                                                                                          Nitrite 0.25 ppm
                                                                                                                                          Nitrate 40ppm
Any tips to when i can add baby fish,i have 4 white clouds  in there at the moment as test fish and they have been in there for about 5 days.

 

[attibones]

Don't keep the white clouds in there. You should cycle it fishless so that you have a more stable cycle. It also takes less time to do. If you take a bit of media from the stocked tank, add it to the new filter, and then add pure ammonia (without any live animals involved), you'll get a faster cycle that will allow you to add the fry as soon as ammonia and nitrite read zero. If you are unsure about the best way to do this, the second link in my sig will help you out.