So I Have A Problem! :(

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Aethanyc

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Hey guys, I've got a bit of a problem I was hoping you could help me with!

I'm a Uni student, I don't live too far from home (less than an hour's drive) during term time so getting my little 25L tank home for the 4 week holidays has been no problem at all...I've had the same fish for almost a year and they're all fighting fit! However, my burning desire for a larger tank overcame me this weekend and I bought a used Juwel 125L tank and cabinet off eBay for £107! Serious bargain! It also came with a Fluval U2 filter, a 250W heater, some rocks, a fake plant and a few ornaments, an air stone and 3D backing (which is sealed into the tank, nothing I can do about it), replacement filter pads and some finrot medicine.

So, where's my problem, right? Well!

My family is moving to Shouldham, Norfolk around the 22nd of April, and I go to Uni in Surrey, which is about 2 hours' drive. I'll be at home with my family from April/May until the end of September, when I'll be moving to my own place near Uni, obviously, and then I'll be there for a year. My question to you guys is...when on earth should I start planning this 125L tank?
I'm worried that if I start my fishless cycle as soon as we move to the new house that it won't finish until July, and by the time I stock my tank it'll be time to bag up the fish and the media and 50% of the water and move it all down to Surrey!

So should I wait until September and just set it all up then? I'd really, really rather not wait that long, but if the fishless cycle is going to take a very long time then I'm wondering if setting the tank up over the summer will be a good idea. :/

Please help!

- Nyth
 
Hi there.

If I were you, I would do a fishless cycle but I would "seed" the filter with mature filter material. This quickens the cycle substantially, but I can't tell you how long. Usually takes a couple weeks off the length of the cycling process. I would expect if you start it the end of April with a "seed" you would be ready to go in early June. So then you keep it simple and move it in September. Not ideal but I'm impatient so it would be hard for me to wait. You could take a bit of filter material from you 25 L as the "seed", clip a 1/3 of the material for your new tank and replace it with new stuff in your old tank.
 
If you have a mature 25 gallon tank then you have mature and well established bacteria in your current filter. If you place all of the media from your current filter into the new one, then I don't see why you couldn't run it on the new tank with your current fish and plants right away. Obviously you'll have to test the water regularly as it settles down and introduce any extra fish slowly, but in theory it should be fine.
 
Hi there.

If I were you, I would do a fishless cycle but I would "seed" the filter with mature filter material. This quickens the cycle substantially, but I can't tell you how long. Usually takes a couple weeks off the length of the cycling process. I would expect if you start it the end of April with a "seed" you would be ready to go in early June. So then you keep it simple and move it in September. Not ideal but I'm impatient so it would be hard for me to wait. You could take a bit of filter material from you 25 L as the "seed", clip a 1/3 of the material for your new tank and replace it with new stuff in your old tank.

Hi Karin, thanks for replying. :) That's what I was thinking would be ideal, but now here comes the thick newbie question...in my 25L I have a completely different filter from the Fluval U2 I'll be running in the 125L...how do I clip media from the little filter and fit it into the big one?
That's probably a really, really stupid question but I don't just want to clip 1/3 of the little filter's media and jam it into anywhere that'll fit lol.
Also, I'm not planning on moving the fish I have in my 25L to my 125L...I'm keeping both tanks. So will the fish I have now be okay when I pluck media from their filter? Again, probably a stupid question, but I want to make sure! ^^

If you have a mature 25 gallon tank then you have mature and well established bacteria in your current filter. If you place all of the media from your current filter into the new one, then I don't see why you couldn't run it on the new tank with your current fish and plants right away. Obviously you'll have to test the water regularly as it settles down and introduce any extra fish slowly, but in theory it should be fine.

Hi! :) I don't have a mature 25 gallon tank (I wish I did!), it's a 25L...and I don't really want to move my current fish to the bigger tank since I have a Betta in there, and he's pretty happy where he is. Plus I'd like completely different stock in the larger tank that most likely wouldn't be the best of pals with my Betta...do you think clipping some filter media and using it to cycle the bigger tank at the end of April will work to speed things along enough, though?
 
Hi! :) I don't have a mature 25 gallon tank (I wish I did!), it's a 25L...and I don't really want to move my current fish to the bigger tank since I have a Betta in there, and he's pretty happy where he is. Plus I'd like completely different stock in the larger tank that most likely wouldn't be the best of pals with my Betta...do you think clipping some filter media and using it to cycle the bigger tank at the end of April will work to speed things along enough, though?

Apologies, I read it right but put down gallons by mistake :blush:.

Yes, introducing mature media will speed the cycle without doubt, the more you can use the better. If you can somehow get it physically into the new filter then all the better, but some people have simply cleaned out or squeezed current filter material into the new tank by the new filters input and helped to establish the colony that way.
 
Nice tank siz Nyth i have a 125l too :good: maybe you could see if theres someone on the forum local to you that could donate some mature media? or know someone with a tank? as said this will greatly reduce the cycle time
 
Actually transferring mature media from a mature filter into the new filter is by far the most effective way to speed up a fishless cycle. However, using the new tank that has the new filter running on it to be a "cleaning bucket" for the mature filter is probably the second most effective help or is a good additional thing to do along with the moving of some mature media.

The accepted standard is to use no more than 1/3 of the mature media from the existing filter (and if the mature filter has multiple types of media, it is usually the "biomedia", not the mechanical or chemical media. This usually means the main sponge or ceramic gravel bed etc.) By only taking 1/3, the existing tank should keep running without experiencing any mini-spike symptoms of ammonia or nitrite(NO2).

Small filters with proprietary pads can be a challange. The first thing to do may be to obtain a new pad so that you have the same type of biomedia material handy. Often the pad is really a sack stretched on a frame and what people do is slit the sack open, remove 1/3 of the filler and replace that 1/3 with filler from the new one they bought. Obviously, one of the dangers is of creating a way that water can leak all the way through without being filtered. You just have to study the situation and try to be creative to avoid that problem. (This often provides the hobbyist with their first lesson in why experienced hobbyists hate proprietary filtration objects and prefer open trays where beds of custom material can be simply placed or poured!)

Obviously another problem will be that a small filter for a betta will not really provide a large volume of mature media, whether by the "cleaning bucket" method or even to some extent the 1/3 move method. So the speedup may be less, and of course that's pretty important in your situation. Still, no matter how small, there's nothing to equal the use of mature media as a speed up. Best of luck. Unfortunately, larger tanks are rather like or even worse than large furniture in being a feature of sedentary households and definately cause inconviences for a mobile hobbyist!

~~waterdrop~~
 
Apologies, I read it right but put down gallons by mistake :blush:.

Yes, introducing mature media will speed the cycle without doubt, the more you can use the better. If you can somehow get it physically into the new filter then all the better, but some people have simply cleaned out or squeezed current filter material into the new tank by the new filters input and helped to establish the colony that way.

No problem! Hehe, I figured it was just a typo or something. :3

And yeah, the filters are completely different so I think I'll have to go with the squeezing method...the U2 is pretty sophisticated whereas the little filter I have running now just has a sponge...I'll get some pictures of it up so you guys can help me figure out how to do this! xD I might have done a huge amount of reading but nothing's better than actually doing it...and I'm finding myself more and more confused the more I try and do. :S That sounds worse than it is, lol.

Nice tank siz Nyth i have a 125l too :good: maybe you could see if theres someone on the forum local to you that could donate some mature media? or know someone with a tank? as said this will greatly reduce the cycle time

Thanks lilfishie! ^^ Yeah I'm really excited about it...it's quite long and shallow though, I'll get the dimensions up when I start thinking about stocking it. And I think I actually might ask someone from the forum, yeah! Who knows, they might have a U2 as well to make things a bit less complicated. xD

Actually transferring mature media from a mature filter into the new filter is by far the most effective way to speed up a fishless cycle. However, using the new tank that has the new filter running on it to be a "cleaning bucket" for the mature filter is probably the second most effective help or is a good additional thing to do along with the moving of some mature media.

The accepted standard is to use no more than 1/3 of the mature media from the existing filter (and if the mature filter has multiple types of media, it is usually the "biomedia", not the mechanical or chemical media. This usually means the main sponge or ceramic gravel bed etc.) By only taking 1/3, the existing tank should keep running without experiencing any mini-spike symptoms of ammonia or nitrite(NO2).

Small filters with proprietary pads can be a challange. The first thing to do may be to obtain a new pad so that you have the same type of biomedia material handy. Often the pad is really a sack stretched on a frame and what people do is slit the sack open, remove 1/3 of the filler and replace that 1/3 with filler from the new one they bought. Obviously, one of the dangers is of creating a way that water can leak all the way through without being filtered. You just have to study the situation and try to be creative to avoid that problem. (This often provides the hobbyist with their first lesson in why experienced hobbyists hate proprietary filtration objects and prefer open trays where beds of custom material can be simply placed or poured!)

Obviously another problem will be that a small filter for a betta will not really provide a large volume of mature media, whether by the "cleaning bucket" method or even to some extent the 1/3 move method. So the speedup may be less, and of course that's pretty important in your situation. Still, no matter how small, there's nothing to equal the use of mature media as a speed up. Best of luck. Unfortunately, larger tanks are rather like or even worse than large furniture in being a feature of sedentary households and definately cause inconviences for a mobile hobbyist!

~~waterdrop~~

Thanks so much! That's a lot of information. :) However my little tank is overstocked at the moment since I decided to rescue a few mollies from a friend who was going to flush them, but I'm trying to rehome them ASAP. :/ So I'm not sure if there will be more media in the filter as a result of the overstocking, or even if it's been long enough for the extra fish to have affected everything. Probably has been.
I think what I'll do is ask someone on the forum if they have any media to spare when it gets closer to the day, since I'm not so sure how I'd get media from my current little filter. Like I said, it's a very simple little one, with just a big sponge in the middle of it, so either squeezing that or getting a donation will be my best bet, I think...

I'm just hoping that whatever happens the cycle won't take TOO long so I don't have to stress my future fish out too much with the September move! :/

Also, concerning the extra mollies I need to find homes for, do you think I should just take them to my lfs or should I try and find someone on the forum who'll want them?

Thanks so much everyone, you're really helping me out and making me feel like this won't be impossible to pull off! :)
 
Bump? Anyone know if I should take the mollies to my lfs or if I should ask people on the forum if they'd like them? I'd really rather get my tank stock down to an acceptable level ASAP.

As far as the original problem goes, I think I'll just get some media from someone on the forum and then use it to cycle the big tank at the end of April (but I'll need you guys to walk me through that, hahaha, I've never had a filter/tank this big before. :p) So thanks a lot to everyone who helped me out, I'm so happy I don't have to wait until September!!
 
Bump again, can anyone give me some advice about the mollies? My lfs won't take them. :(
 
Hard to answer but if it was me, I would take them to the lfs. But then I'm not that into Mollies. 3 in a 25L sounds like a mess though. Did you want mollies in the new tank?
 
I've started a topic in classifieds to see if anyone wants them...but I'm really running out of time as they're seriously overcrowding my tank and it's starting to worry me quite a lot. :/ I might try my lfs again and just say I have literally no other options...even if I wanted mollies in the big tank that's far too long for them to stay in this tank I have now. :( I'm starting to think that taking them was a terrible idea but I couldn't stand the thought of them being flushed!!

Gagghh.
 
Sorry, was off traveling, lol. No, I -always- think it's a really kind-hearted thing when one of our members saves fish from being flushed or otherwise treated poorly. My hat's off to you!

It's very hard to get fish re-homed. We mention it all the time without really saying what a pain it is. In my experience you have to just start trying "everything" as soon as possible. Go to all the LFS places you know of and try to be friendly and so forth. Talk to any friends with tank space. And finally, put ads on craigslist for free tropical fish (when you give them away to any stranger you don't really know what will come of their life but at least you will have tried to give them something better than the certain death of being flushed, right?)

~~waterdrop~~
 
Sorry, was off traveling, lol. No, I -always- think it's a really kind-hearted thing when one of our members saves fish from being flushed or otherwise treated poorly. My hat's off to you!

It's very hard to get fish re-homed. We mention it all the time without really saying what a pain it is. In my experience you have to just start trying "everything" as soon as possible. Go to all the LFS places you know of and try to be friendly and so forth. Talk to any friends with tank space. And finally, put ads on craigslist for free tropical fish (when you give them away to any stranger you don't really know what will come of their life but at least you will have tried to give them something better than the certain death of being flushed, right?)

~~waterdrop~~

Thanks waterdrop, I have some great news! After lots of phoning around I found a store that will take them! :D it's about half an hour away but I'm sure they'll be fine....
I'm so relieved! Now I don't have to worry so much and I can focus on planning my big one for April. :)

Thanks so much you guys!
 

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