New Tank, Old Filter

[This Old Spouse]

I have a 55 gallon that's been set up for several months. I had two large filters on it because of cloudy water due to quartz rocks in the tank. I kept the filter going mostly through laziness. All tests in the normal range. Fish mostly happy (except for the !@#$ dwarf gourami) and life is good.

My husband scored a free 20 gallon tank. I didn't come with any kind of filter, so I took the extra from the 55 gallon and put it directly into the 20 gallon. There is substrate but no plants or fish.

My question is, what are the guidelines for cycling this new tank? Since I have that wonderful biological goo in the old filter, do I still need to treat this like a brand new tank? I've looked through other responses to using media such as this but didn't see how to go about getting the tank ready for fish.

Any help appreciated!

 

[ZoddyZod]

personally I would say it's good to go immediately. Be cautious when stocking the new tank though, dont fully stock in one go as the filter is only capable of VERY ROUGHLY supporting 50% of your 55g stock - if both filters are the same and have the same lph rating and amount of media.

a filter bacteria colony can double in size if there is enough ammonica/nitrite for them to feed on, so when your 55g loses that additional filter, it should not take it long to be able to cope with the increased bio-load.

 

[weezawoo]

Just a quick one, there was another thread about the life of beneficial bacteria, if this filter has been running on normal water with no ammonia would that not mean some of the bacteria has died with nothing to feed it? Sorry correct me if I am wrong!

 

[Squidward]

Just a quick one, there was another thread about the life of beneficial bacteria, if this filter has been running on normal water with no ammonia would that not mean some of the bacteria has died with nothing to feed it? Sorry correct me if I am wrong!

Yes, there will need to be some sort of ammonia source to keep the bacteria in the filter going.

 

[This Old Spouse]

I pulled the filter out of my 55 gallon which has the fish listed in my signature. Completely active. Sooo ... if I'm not going to put fish in the new 20 gallon right away, I need to add ammonia every day? Or fish?

 

[weezawoo]

You could add some fish as the filter should be able to come with the bioload as the bacteria would still be alive and kicking! It is just if it is left with nothing for a few days it will die off. If you aren't able to add fish then ammonia will keep the bacteria up!

 

[Squidward]

Or you could chuck in a few flakes of fish food.

But it should be ok to add a few fish straight away.

 

[This Old Spouse]

Thank you SO much!