Setting Up A New Tank

[acula]

Ive had my Tropical tank set up for about 6 months now and all is well

I'm now setting up a cold-water tank

I was wondering if it would be in the tanks interest to transfer a few pints of the water from my tropical tank when i do my water changes to help the bacteria build up in the cold tank?

Also i was wondering what fruit and vegetables are suitable to feed both my tropical fish and my cold-water as a treat?

 

[Corleone]

The water won't do much, but if you take a portion of your filter media and put it in the new filter (you can take an equal amount of the new media an fill the hole in the mature tank, it'll be recolonized fairly quickly, otherwise buy new media to fill the hole), it will help greatly, and can sometimes bypass the cycle process entirely.

 

[acula]

thx i might do that but to be honest im not sure i dare go near the filter in my tropical tank. I had a lot of trouble getting it all up and running and i'd hate to put it at risk

 

[Corleone]

If it's been stable for six months, it should be able to handle removing up to a third of the filter media. I usually only take a quarter, myself, and just do extra water changes for the first week following.

 

[acula]

How would i do it exactly, just take a pair of scissors to it?

 

[Corleone]

If it's a sponge or fiber pad, scissors will work just fine. It cuts easily, so you should be done within a couple seconds.

 

[waterdrop]

I agree completely with Corleone's advice - move some media.

If you are worried about the fragility of your existing mature filter, and have the time, I would choose the smaller 1/4 removal, and then test and add ammonia and treat it like a finalizing fishless cycle, which you are already experienced with. Hopefully you would find the new filter, with its little 1/4 injection of mature media to be able to process the 4ppm ammonia down to zero in not that much more than 12 hours and after a few days it would get there and be considered a cycled filter.

Seems like a fair number of threads have positive things to say about the occasional cucumber chunk as being a nice veggie-type treat - you could search it.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

I see my LFS using slices of orange with any fish that eat vegetable matter. I have used leaves from brussels sprouts, cooked green beans and cucumber slices.

 

[acula]

ok thx guys

btw i gave em some cucumber today, they had a nibble on it but i think they enjoyed play fighting with it more