New Tank New Filter

[Craig89]

Hi all i currently have a 90l tank and i am upgrading to a 150l tank in about a months time is it possible to run the new filter i have in my current tank to get the bacteria and things right and then add it to my new tank when i change over as i havnt got the space to run both tanks at the same time .

 

[fatheadminnow]

Yeah you can do that.

This is called "seeding" a filter.

You can even swap all of your filter media over from your old filter to your new filter as well.

This would be a more effective method.

-FHM

 

[waterdrop]

Its takes about a month of running them together for the bacteria to evenly distribute between the two filters. Or you can run them together for a shorter time as a start, to get some of the right bacteria in the new one, and then finish things out with the end of an Add&Wait method Fishless Cycle (Fishless Cycling is documented here in our pinned articles and discussed in our threads.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

I have read that it can be done as you say WD but my own experience with trying to use a filter that was not seeded but just ran side by side for a month was that it was not properly cycled and I had to seed it with a filter cleaning to establish the bacteria in it. I did just that side by side for a month and placed 2 juvenile swordtails into the supposed cycled tank. When I got a large nitrite rise, I washed a filter in their tank and let that seed my sort of new filter. 3 days later the emergency 90% daily water changes could finally stop because nitrites had settled down. I have no doubt that the ammonia in a tank will keep a cycled filter ticking over but a few weeks side by side was not enough in my case.
It more or less acted like a filter that had been in a fish-in cycle for a month but the other filter had been keeping the tank safe for the occupants. It left me with a filter in the middle of the nitrite spike.

 

[fatheadminnow]

I have read that it can be done as you say WD but my own experience with trying to use a filter that was not seeded but just ran side by side for a month was that it was not properly cycled and I had to seed it with a filter cleaning to establish the bacteria in it. I did just that side by side for a month and placed 2 juvenile swordtails into the supposed cycled tank. When I got a large nitrite rise, I washed a filter in their tank and let that seed my sort of new filter. 3 days later the emergency 90% daily water changes could finally stop because nitrites had settled down. I have no doubt that the ammonia in a tank will keep a cycled filter ticking over but a few weeks side by side was not enough in my case.
It more or less acted like a filter that had been in a fish-in cycle for a month but the other filter had been keeping the tank safe for the occupants. It left me with a filter in the middle of the nitrite spike.

Running a new filter side-by-side with a current filter in a cycled tank is not really going to speed up the colonization of autotrophic bacteria in the new filter, maybe a bit. Since the autotrophic bacteria do not live in the water column, this means that they cannot simply get up and march out of one filter and into a new one.

Instead, running a new filter side-by-side with a current cycled filter is going to allow the new filter to become cycled, without adding any ammonia (fishless cycling procedure) to the tank, or doing daily water changes (fish-in cycling procedure).

So, by running a new filter in a cycled tank, is going to allow that new filter to become cycled without you, the owner of the tank, doing really anything but keep on maintaining your current tank the way you did all along before adding the new filter.

1 month is more or less a guideline of time that, on average, this process may take place; the colonization of Abac's and Nbac's within the new filter in an already cycled tank.

So, in conclusion, this is more like a "stress-free" and less time consuming procedure to colonize bacteria in a new filter, without doing any fishless or fish-in cycling or adding mature filter media to a new filter.

OM47, I know you know this, so I am not ripping on you...lol... ... just thought it might be helpful to the OP.

-FHM

 

[OldMan47]

Nicely put FHM. I had hoped to get a fair start on the cycle from the moment I knew I would be getting the fish, but I didn't leave it long enough to get there. I usually run at least one spare filter on my heaviest populated community tank so that I have one in a crisis if needed. I pulled that big filter a week ago, when the filter on my 20 gallon failed, and it was indeed fully cycled, but it had been there for many months.

 

[fatheadminnow]

Nicely put FHM. I had hoped to get a fair start on the cycle from the moment I knew I would be getting the fish, but I didn't leave it long enough to get there. I usually run at least one spare filter on my heaviest populated community tank so that I have one in a crisis if needed. I pulled that big filter a week ago, when the filter on my 20 gallon failed, and it was indeed fully cycled, but it had been there for many months.

Yeah, I wish my smaller filter would fit on my 55 gallon because then I would have a spare like you were saying.

The smaller filter is a HOB AQ20, and it would not fit nicely over the top lip on my 55 gallon tank.

-FHM

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I personally would be doing the "clean the old filter in the tank where the new filter is running" thing (which I think of as the "OM Method" in honor of you OM47 . I was just making a short answer of the OPs question, so it goes to show that a "forum" is better!

I will though make one quibble with FHM. I think we should be careful in stating "autotrophic bacteria do not live in the water column" as this might be confused to mean they "can't" live in the water column, which is not true. They only use the biomedia to settle down and build their permanent colonies. They "get there" through the water column. Every glass of tap water has on average about 10 million bacteria in it and some of those are autotrophs and some of those are Nitrosomonas and Nitrospira.

The good thing about this thread is that it should make it clear to craig89 that doing all three "boosters" ( 1-moving mature media directly in to the new filter, 2-cleaning the old filter in the tank water that will be pulled in to the new filter and 3-hanging the new filter on the established tank for as many weeks as possible) would be the best of all if you could do it!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fatheadminnow]

Yeah I know that they can live in the water column, I was just trying to make it a little easier for the OP to understand...lol.

Thanks though WD for stating that!

What I meant was that the autotrophic bacteria don't colonize in the water column, they do so on surface, and in areas that have the most water flow such as your filter.

I just did not want to confuse the OP by saying that they live in the water column. I am sure you can see where I am coming from.

Just by hanging a new filter on a tank is not going to make the bacteria in the established filter go "hey, there's a new filter over there, lets go to that one." lol

-FHM

 

[waterdrop]

Yeah, I knew all along that you knew it. It was all about the writing... trying to coax you into writing with emphasis without going all the way to making the statement absolute!

I do think OM47's observation is an example of the best kind of sharing of actual experience we can get on here. We should take this to heart and urge those considering just running filters side by side to take the steps to do more than that.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fatheadminnow]

You have a good point WD, thanks again for informing me!

-FHM