New Tank

[Apollo_87]

Hello all,
A while back I bought a fishtank for my goldfish and he's doing fine, however i have recently decided to upgrade his tank to a bigger one, i was wondering if anyone could help in telling me the best way to go about it. What I mean is as this tank is about twice the size of his previous one, I have bought more gravel, same as the last one, I have cleaned/rinsed it a few times and am going to fill the new tank soon to start a cycle, i didnt do the cycle for all that long last time i did it (about 3 days) but this time i want to do it for a week, but this is where im nto sure what to do in terms of the gravel. I'll do the cycle with the new gravel, but then when im ready to transfer my fish, i want to add the old gravel to the new tank also, this will surely make a mess wont it? Would I be better placing the fish in a 3rd container for a day while the sediment that will no doubt be kicked up with the old gravel settles in the new tank, or is the old gravel likely to be fine and just all sink straight to the bottom of the new tank?
Thanks in advance for any help

 

[alchemist]

Hi -

I recently upgraded my tank and had a similar situation to you. I think you well definitely want to clean the old gravel in a bucket before you put it in the new tank. I bagged up my fish during the change which gave me time to clean everything and move it over.

Will you be using a new filter in the new tank? One week is not long enough to cycle the new tank - unless you are brining the old filter over as well.
If you are bringing over the old filter you should be able to just move everything in one go.

 

[Apollo_87]

Cheers Alchemist,
Yes im going to bring the filter over, but I am considering getting a bigger one, while u swapped the old gravel over how long did u have to wait before the water had settled enough to put your fish in? Its just one goldfish, but i am considering adding a few Danios, leapard or zebra, possibly even a snail or two.
Also if anyone knows, i cant seem to find much on them, but do snails (in coldwater) give off much waste, i understand they clean the tank but would they outdo the good they do in the waste they give off? Sorry if that wasnt clear

 

[waterdrop]

Snails do not give off much waste.

Its incorrect to refer to things you do for 3 days or a week as "cycling." Cycling is the short term we use for "nitrogen cycle" and its the process of growing two specific species of autotrophic bacteria in the correct types of filter media to make a biofilter that's capable of supporting fish. The presence of sufficient numbers of those bacteria must be tested for. The bacteria are slow-growing enough that the growing process often stretches to two months.

The only elapsed time indication you've given us is "a while back," so we don't really know whether its possible that you have a correctly working filter yet. Assuming your tank has been running for some months with the goldfish though, its likely the biofilter is now mature and has balanced its bacterial size to meet the waste load of your goldfish. If that's the case then you would have an easy time moving both the fish and filter to the new larger tank and running the old filter and the new filter side-by-side on the new tank for a month before removing the old filter.

You would need to learn about proper test kits and the process of using them, if you don't already know that. You'd want to discuss the problems of putting tropical species into a tank with cold water species, which it sounds like you're considering doing.

Anyway, its great that you're doubling the tank size for your goldfish! They need 30g minimum if I remember right and need a good filter as they are high waste producers! Welcome to TFF!

~~waterdrop~~