Questions Regarding Bacteria And Old/new Filter Media!

[DanielLB]

I have recently upgraded my (rather inferior) 30l tank to a 190l tank and have some questions regarding cloning bacteria and new/old filter media.

At the moment I am living in two places across the country. the 190l I set up the other day but won't be near it for another 2 weeks. the water and gravel (plus some from the already mature tank) are already in it - but as i am away for two weeks I now there wasn't much point as there is no ammonia ect for the filter to remove (just keen to get it going).

In two weeks time, therefore, i am moving the 30l to my new home. the plan is to use the mature media in there and put it in the new 190 external filter. questions follow:
1)The 30l will still have to be running at the same time as the 190l so i need new media to replace the stuff that will be going out. how long will it take for new media in the 30l to colonise bacteria and be sufficient enough to remove ammonia ect and replace the old media for the 190l. will it also colonise fine just floating in the tank?
2)(approx) how long will it take the 190l to cycle before i can move over everything into it
3)I have read conflicting suggestions about as soon as you move over the media you can put fish straight in. i don't particulary want to do this so what do you guys think?

Thanks for any help

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Daniel and Welcome to our beginners section!

Actually you have a perfect situation for what you want to do, assuming you can get back over to the new place in the near term. The cycling of the new filter in the new system will take a while and you can get it started now.

Normally of course you want to fishless cycle with ammonia so that you have lots of control over the process, but when you can't be there you can still do a single ammonia dose supplemented by a couple of very small pinches of fishfood. The fishfood will have a pretty long delay breaking down in to ammonia but should just be getting to the ammonia point about the time your first few A-Bacs are beginning to process some of that initial household ammonia dose. The very beginning of a fishless cycle is the perfect time for this sort of thing.

The reason it is such a good plan (at least in my opinion) is that I feel its better to introduce the mature media from your mature filter only after the fishless cycle has started to roll a little in the new tank. Mature media transfers work a little better that way I think. Once you move and are ready to do the transfer, you'll figure out a plan to move about 1/3 of the biomedia (the sponge or whatever your best biomedia is in the old filter) over to the new filter (ideally you'll work it in somehow just before the biomedia part of the new filter in the internal flow path of the water.) You'll replace the 1/3 removed with some new biomedia in the old filter, since you're still going to be running that tank in the new house (at least that's my understanding.)

When you are not doing entire filter-clones, the very best way to do transfers is to still perform the fishless cycle along with the qualifying week concept but to anticipate that the mature media should make the whole process go much more quickly and nicely than a standard fishless cycle. If you are new to this you may have to read some of our other fishless cycling threads or get further help with the details of how we do the qualifying week etc.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[DanielLB]

Thanks for the answer mate!
Obviously if I have to move over 1/3 of the mature media, can i just replace with 1/3 of new media? Does it have to be in the tank for a certain amount of time before? Could i not put the whole old media into the new tank if the new media (for smaller tank) can be cloned in time before the move?

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Daniel,

I think you are confusing volume of media with the amount of time it takes to form mature media. Forming mature media in a filter ("cycling" it) takes the same amount of time in a small filter as it does in a large filter. What you are doing is creating the correct environment for the bacteria and then waiting for them to grow and testing for signs that they have grown enough to support fish. The two species you are growing are very slow growers (which is what makes nearly everyone impatient and frustrated.)

It therefor would make no sense to move all your media out of the small filter if it still needs to support fish in the small tank. It would take just as long to create a new biofilter for the fish in the small tank. Instead, it would be much better to move 1/3 (the largest amount that can safely be removed and still leave the small filter functional for its existing fish) of the biomedia to the new large filter to "seed" it and accelerate its Fishless Cycle. In a fishless cycle you must supply small doses of household ammonia to feed the growing bacteria.

Mature media always needs to be -inside- the new filter its moved to in order to receive a flow of ammonia and fresh, oxygenated water so that its existing bacterial colonies will break off, re-colonize in the new biomedia areas of the new filter and begin to build their biofilms on the biomedia surfaces. Its best to position the mature media right before the new media in the water path inside the filter. Putting mature media inside the aquarium but not in the filter does hardly any good. There is however one additional thing that is helpful: you can -clean- the remaining biomedia (gently squeeze the spong for instance) of the old filter directly in the water of the new tank and the debris and bacteria that go in to the water will be pulled in to the new filter and will help a little with the "seeding" process (not anywhere near as much as the actual moving of the 1/3 mature media will though.)

Does that make sense? Am I right that there will be some fish staying in the old tank and some you're hoping to move to the new tank in the new home (that is important to what I'm describing of course.)?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[DanielLB]

Thank you for clearing things up for me - yeah i was getting a little confused between it all! I wasn't sure if moving all the mature media (instead of 1/3) would speed up the cycle quicker in the new tank without jeopardising the fish that will be staying in the old tank.

Thanks for the help waterdrop - much appreciated

 

[waterdrop]

Good, yes, what you want in this hobby is to slow down and become fascinated with bacteria and water and glass and plants and filters and enjoy the way the whole hobby is the opposite of our computers and cell phones and all the other things of our fast-paced world. This gets you tuned in to let your beautiful underwater creation relax you and give you the most benefit!

Anyway, the darn autotrophs take forever to grow but once they've grown you've got them for life if you take care of them. A good mature media (MM) seeding will often reduce a fishless cycle to only being a week or two but you still owe it to yourself to make sure the filter passes its "qualifying week" as per the many fishless cycling threads we have going here in the beginners section. If the filter can drop 5ppm of ammonia to zero ppm of ammonia and zero ppm of nitrite(NO2) within 12 hours of when its dosed then its ready for its qualifying week.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

As WD has said, a 1/3 media donation is all your old filter can afford and still take care of the fish in the old tank. That 1/3 donation should go right into the new filter as soon as practical and then the new tank should be dosed with ammonia as if you are doing a fishless cycle, you really are but you have a distinct advantage of a great head start. Since the bacteria in a filter can theoretically double in number each day, it is entirely possible to get that new filter ready in as little as a week but I would not want to rely on that happening. Try the math with me day 1, the new filter has only enough bacteria for 1/3 of a 30l tank, call it a 10 litre tank's stocking. Day 2 that is 2/3 of a 30 litre, day 3 that is enough for a 40 litre tank, day 4 it is enough or an 80 litre and day 5 you are theoretically fully cycled for a 160 litre tank. Obviously the next day you can fully stock that 190. Don't even begin to believe that stuff. These are biological systems, not simple mathematical models. They will reproduce as suits them and may not do anything to increase for a day or two of their own choosing. It will definitely be too soon when you want to move your fish in 2 weeks but may actually be close if you have someone to tend to the cycle on the new filter. I get in trouble with the maths all the time and end up finishing a cycle for a day or two after my fish arrive. I just finished 3 days of 95% daily water changes for my new Betta simplex breeders after a theoretically cycled filter let me down. By day 3 things had stabilized and the fish were fine, the male is even holding eggs now at only a week in my tank, but those 3 days were a nightmare for me because my tap water tested at 4 ppm of nitrites and could not be used for water changes directly.

 

[waterdrop]

Glad I was around to take some cases with all that water changing going on in Illinois (we have to remember my latest favorite saying: bacteria are like teenagers, they do what they want, when they want. )