New Tank (Well Second Hand But New To Me)

[Shnee]

Ok so it looks like I am going to purchase a larger tank compared to the one I have, it is going to come with a fair few fish but I have space in my other tanks for them in the short term.

My question is if I get the tank with a mature filter and get 2 x 200 litre water butts to bring the water home I then run the filter through one of the tanks with a heater in both, while I replace the substrate and install a new background (will take about a week) when I add the 400 liters of water back to the tank and combine that with the water from my other (a further 200 litres) will that class as a cycled tank as I am going to need to move the fish at this point. (Of course I am going to do all the test etc but want to know if this is going to work as if not I will not take the 400 litres and simply do a proper cycle.

New tank is approx 600 litres btw.

 

[SimoUK]

If you take all of the water from the new tank, and all of the filter media from the new tank, take it home and then put all of the water and filtermedia back in the new tank then it will be cycled. Providing the filtermedia isnt left to dry out.

 

[OldMan47]

Don't worry about getting those water butts. The tank water has nothing of real value to you in setting up a "new" tank. The decor, gravel and filter media will contain the biological filter from the tank before it was broken down. That is the place where preserving the old and feeding it some ammonia will do you the most good.