Rio 180 Instant Seeding?

[Ren&Stumpy]

ok i'm buying a Rio 180 today for the bedroom and will be running its internal filter i have a rio 400 downstairs with a fluval 405 canister and an eheim pro 3 2180 running on it.

the fluval is the more mature filter on that tank and i was wondering if i bought the internal biomax canister for the internal filter and switched that new media for some mature media from the fluval 405 would that be enough to enable me to stock that tank straight away we are not talking messy fish, angels and some rainbows and cory's.

I have no large stock for it at the minute apart from 1 male betta 4 female betta's and some panda cories in a smaller tank but i dont want the bettas in there if angels will cause damage or vice versa, and also the bio load they produce is not enough to keep the mature media going

 

[flash22]

your still have to cycle the tank but seeding the filter will speed things up no end

you can get net bags for carbon/media in all sorts of sizes there a pound upwards. depending if its old or new stock it may have the bioflow filter the newer tanks have them fitted now (still loads of older stock floating around tho). but you can buy the cirax media on its own for less then a fiver

Mature media in a net bag would be the cheaper option

 

[Ren&Stumpy]

your still have to cycle the tank but seeding the filter will speed things up no end

you can get net bags for carbon/media in all sorts of sizes there a pound upwards. depending if its old or new stock it may have the bioflow filter the newer tanks have them fitted now (still loads of older stock floating around tho). but you can buy the cirax media on its own for less then a fiver

well my other tank was older stock cos it didnt have the cirax media in the internal (didnt matter ripped it out lol)

 

[doresy]

I am at the minute cycling a Rio 125 using the standard internal filter. I bought that tray of cirax media, opened the casing and it swaped it over with my very matured noodles from other tank. I also swaped some matured foam for the new stuff so I would say 75% of the media was matured.

I am 10 days into the fishless cycle and although I can see off 5ppm of ammonia in under 8 hours the nitrite is still peaking at around 5ppm.

So, IME I would agree with others, seeding is great but not a miricle worker

Unless you move the whole filter or all the media into a new filter then you will still have to follow the cycle program

 

[flash22]

just rescued my ehiem external after it being switched off for 6 hours but managed to save most of the bacteria took a week of me dosing with ammonia @ 5ppm some how i have seemed to of rescued the second stage bact's (nitrite - nitrate) as i was getting nitrate straght away

in the past i have swaped mature external filters between tanks what give you an instant tank**


**doesnt all ways work just have to keep an eye on the levels for a week or so

 

[Tolak]

Sounds like what you are thinking of doing is more of a cloning deal. I do this all the time, and keep spare filters running for this purpose.

A mature colony of nitrifying bacteria is capable of doubling in 24 hours. You could, in theory, take half, and start a new tank with the same bio load as the original tank.

Theory & real life can differ, I wouldn't and don't take more than about 1/3 of the mature bio media. I also fast for 24 hours before removing media, less food equals less waste produced. Feeding lightly for the next week also helps in this regard.

For ease of math let's say we have a mature 100 gallon tank running, with 100 guppys. You could take a percentage of the media, start a new tank with the same percentage of guppys from the mature tank, and have two cycled tanks. The media doesn't know what tank it is running on.

You could also fast our imaginary tank for 24 hours, take 1/3 of the mature media, and add it to another 100 gallon tank. We know this media will support 33 guppys, with fasting, light feeding, as well as keeping an eye on water parameters, we could increase the stocking on the new tank to 44 guppys, 1/3 more.

This is just an example, in real life few people have a 100 gallon tank with 100 guppys, and plan on setting up another. What folks generally have to try to do is guesstimate the bio load of the donor tank, and the percentage of media. This is the reason I like to go with 1/3, it leaves a little room for error.

 

[Ren&Stumpy]

well the donor tank is as i said a rio 400 with a mature filter and a less mature filter running on it.

The mature one could spare 1/3 or 1/4 but the internal would not take that much and i haven't got the funds for the external i want running on there eventually.

the donor tank has oscars in it so hte bio load wont be anywhere near that in the clone tank