Swapping Tanks

[Hmongol]

I've had this 5 gallon tank for almost a year now and I think I'd like to move my fish into a new bigger home... say 10 or 20 gallon.

Question is, can I basically pour my 5 gallon tank water into the new tank and use the same filter(aquaclear20) which has accumilated enough bacteria and ran for about a year from the old tank.

If possible I'd like to skip the cycle or shorten it drastically.
Will it be a bad idea to do that and what harm may come out of it?

 

[Aqua Tom]

Yes you can do that & it should work fine but do not add more fish & cut down the food for a week or so. Also test, test & test again.

Tom

 

[seizethecupcake]

Transferring the tank water won't do much to shorten your cycle, as the real bacteria lives in your filter. You can most certainly "seed" your filter with media from your current aquarium, which is a great way to jump start a cycle. Tizer has an excellent thread/journal in this section about how to cycle a tank using a filter seeded with mature media. It's a great thread, check it out! And welcome to the forum!

 

[mislisa]

Transferring the tank water won't do much to shorten your cycle, as the real bacteria lives in your filter. You can most certainly "seed" your filter with media from your current aquarium, which is a great way to jump start a cycle. Tizer has an excellent thread/journal in this section about how to cycle a tank using a filter seeded with mature media. It's a great thread, check it out! And welcome to the forum!

The op is going to be using the same filter, so cycling shouldn't be necessary...


as you're pretty much just going to be making the tank bigger, i wouldn't worry about it too much, just make sure to test, as tom said.

Good luck, and have fun!

 

[seizethecupcake]

Transferring the tank water won't do much to shorten your cycle, as the real bacteria lives in your filter. You can most certainly "seed" your filter with media from your current aquarium, which is a great way to jump start a cycle. Tizer has an excellent thread/journal in this section about how to cycle a tank using a filter seeded with mature media. It's a great thread, check it out! And welcome to the forum!

The op is going to be using the same filter, so cycling shouldn't be necessary...


as you're pretty much just going to be making the tank bigger, i wouldn't worry about it too much, just make sure to test, as tom said.

Good luck, and have fun!

Oops, I misread that original post. My apologies. Enjoy your new tank!

 

[OldMan47]

As long as you move over the filter to your 20 gallon tank and don't add any fish right away, things will be fine. Your existing filter is well enough populated with bacteria to handle whatever fish you already have so the cycle is really complete as long as the fish and filter follow each other from tank to tank. As an owner of several 10 gallon tanks and a 5 gallon tank, I would suggest that a 5 and a 10 are almost the identical tank when it comes to fish capacity. If you want to expand fish numbers, go for a 20 or a 29 gallon tank. A 29 gallon is only about 30 inches long so it occupies not much more footprint than the 2 foot 20 gallon.

 

[Hmongol]

Thanks for the tips. I sorta figured it would be okay, but I rather make sure of it first.

 

[seizethecupcake]

What fish do you plan to get once you get all moved over? So exciting!