Newbie (sort Of) - Question About Cycling With Fish

[yoz0807]

Hi there,
I am a newbie to the site, but I have had a 20 gal corner tank with tropicals for about 15 years.

I have just got a second hand 4 foot bow fronted juwel tank (about 260 litres) which came with the stand, filter, heater, fish etc.

When I picked the tank up I also collected about 2/3rds of the water, which went back into the tank with the original filter.

The filter that came with the set up seemed to be a woefully inadequate internal thing, so I nipped out and got a fluval 305.

My question is..... whilst I appreciate that the new filter will need to 'mature' is the tank liable to have to go through the whole 'cycling' thing?


I wish I had found this site earlier as I added the 'tetra safe start' and bought some water test strips yesterday.
I have now ordered a proper test kit and will add some mature media from my old tank setup to the new filter.
any help will be appreciated
Ta

 

[Curiosity101]

If you got the tank and it came with all the original fish then the filter it came with will presumably already have enough bacteria to cope with them. In this case simply slot the media from the filter into your new one and this will mean you're still fully cycled. No need to mature the new filter or anything.

However if the filter pads were allowed to dry during the journey, or if the tank hasn't had any fish in it for a few days then there will be no bacteria left alive.

In this case you will have to cycle from the start.

 

[yoz0807]

Thanks for the quick response.

The old filter did not completely dry out but it was not kept fully submersed in tank water either.

My old tank is still running until I am happy that the new tank is stable, but I was going to 'seed' the new filter with some of its media.
unfortunately the media from the internal filter that came with te new tank is not compatible with the fluval 305

I intend to do regular water testing and monitor the quality. I suppose its all I can do to be sure.

By the way, what lighting do you have in the tank pictured at the bottom of your post?

 

[drobbyb]

To confirm that the tank is cycled, get some ammonia (the kind used for fishless cycling) and a test kit. Add ammonia to the tank water to get 5 ppm concentration. Test the water 24 hours later and see if there is ammonia or nitrite in the tank water. If there is ammonia or nitrite then you will need to cycle the tank before adding fish.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree with drobbyb. Always perform the fishless cycle add&wait technique to confirm that a mature media seeding has "taken" and to see the extent to which your new biofilter is cycled. Not only might you be able to chop up some media from the used filter that came with the new tank but of course you can also take up to 1/3 of the media from your existing mature tank without worry about it cycling badly. You often have to be quite creative is re-purposing mature media structures into shapes that can be placed next to or among the new media. Having the water flow of the new filter pass through the mature media right before going though the new undeveloped biomedia is what you want and having the old and new biomedia actually touching each other is quite ideal. In addition, at the same time that you move over the 1/3 mature media (and this should only be done -after- you have already obtained household ammonia and have tested and know how to reach a 4-5ppm concentration in the given tank and thus are already into the act of fishless cycling) you can perform a full-fledged squeeze-out/dunking of your old biomedia (all of it) right in the new tank. To some people this will seem an awful thing to do to their pristine new tank but the new filter will quickly suck in this debris overnight and it will be an additional "seeding" along with the mature media placed within.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Curiosity101]

Thing is guys...it has fish in it at the moment.

Adding ammonia up to 5ppm...not really the smartest move unless the original poster moves all the new stock into the old tank.

 

[waterdrop]

Completely missed that. Where does he say it, another thread? WD

 

[yoz0807]

Hi there,
I have just got a second hand 4 foot bow fronted juwel tank (about 260 litres) which came with the stand, filter, heater, fish etc.

Yes, the tank has got fish in at the moment. 10 head and tail light tetras, 3 glowlight tetras, what looks like a killifish, a crab and some assassin snails.

I dont really fancy the thought of adding that much ammonia to the set up at the moment.

I have done a water test this evening ( with the water test strips) and most of the parameters were well within acceptable levels.
cl2 - ok
ph - 6.8
kh - 3 deg d
gh - 8 deg d
no2 - 1 (safe)
no3 - above 50 but less than 100.

The nitrate seemed a little high so I have done a partial water change.
Also switched some of the filter media between tanks, to try and get things moving.
I intend to do a better test when the 'Proper' water test kit arrives, but so far I think things ar looking quite promising.

Thanks for all of your replies so far
yoz

 

[craig855s]

ur NO2 is not safe,u want it at 0,but up to 0.25 is "acceptable"

 

[OldMan47]

If we can believe the paper test strips you are using, you have way too high nitrites in your tank. You should do at least a 50% water change and maybe two of them to get nitrites under 0.25 ppm. As Craig said, 1.0 nitrites is not safe at all.

 

[drobbyb]

Completely missed that. Where does he say it, another thread? WD

I missed it too.

To clarify, if you already have fish, don't add any ammonia.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree with craig and OM47, most urgent thing is to do probably more than one large water change with good conditioner and rough temperature matching. Then next priority is to get a good liquid-reagent based master test kit so you can find out if those numbers are real.

You'd think after all this time I'd not get surprised when there are fish in there with all those toxins but when drobbyb and I both missed it, I still felt the shock!

Hang in there yoz and the members will get you fixed up. It shouldn't take too long to get that biofilter back to being operational again.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Curiosity101]

Agreed with the above, 50% water change at least.

And also you will be able to fit the old filter media into the new one. Just chop the pads up until they fit. I just looked at a diagram of the filter, I would suggest squishing as much as you can into the section that has the bio ring things in it. But generally the more you can fit in the better.

Hopefully the filter should catch up pretty quickly.

 

[yoz0807]

Thanks for all your replies fellas.
The stupid paper strips are measuring in mg/L and not ppm !!!
On the side of the canister it claims that 1 is safe whilst 5 - 10 requires a water change

Done a partial water change anyway.

I hope the proper test kit arrives tomorrow, at least with decent test results it may put my mind at rest

 

[Curiosity101]

mg/L is the same as ppm Useful that aint it

And yeah I had those test strips back in the day, I was like 'well they sell them and they're cheaper...surely they're just as good '

My boyfriend still says stuff like that to this day. About the week long feeding blocks...he was like 'well they sell them so surely they're fine'.
I said to him 'If I had a choice between using them or starving my fish for a week, I would starve my fish.'