Taking Seeding Material From Another Tank

[SUDDS]

I'm starting a fishless cycle on my first tank. My boyfriends mom has a 55gal tank that she's had for YEARS. The tank looks healthy, the fish don't show signs of illness and have lived in the tank for at least 3 years. No new fish/plants have been added in at least 3 years. This seems like it would be a good place to get seeding material from... but... the 55 gal tank has a snail problem. They don't look to be trumpet snails... but just these little dark brown snails with the round spiral shell (like an apple snail's shell) that are EVERYWHERE.

I'm assuming that taking substrate from this tank isn't a good idea, don't they borrow in it?

So... I came up with this...

I have some of those ceramic cylinders for my filter. Could I take some of those (new of course) and put them in pantyhose and leave them in the 55gal tank? I don't see how there could be a risk of transporting snails to my tank if I use this method... but I could be completely missing something. Would this work? If so, how long should I keep the cylinders in the 55 gal tank?

I don't know ANYONE else who has a fish tank, and I don't trust any of my local pet stores.

I also don't have a pet store around me that sells Bio-Spira and it's too expensive to have it shipped.

So.... can seeding from a tank with a snail problem work?

Thanks!
Hannah

 

[darknirvana217]

I have an Ehiem canister filter hooked up to my 120 gallon aquarium. I cracked it open one day and saw I had some malaysian trumpet snails in my media. You can do it, and may be able to get away with it, but its going to be risky. Just check and see if you have any actually living in teh filter.

 

[Tolak]

Since you are doing a fishless cycle, add some copper to the water. Mardel CopperSafe will work, copper kills invertebrates, and since you are cycling fishless it won't be an issue to any fish.

I have yet to have an issue with bio filtration using copper, it should not affect your cycling at all.

 

[SUDDS]

Since you are doing a fishless cycle, add some copper to the water. Mardel CopperSafe will work, copper kills invertebrates, and since you are cycling fishless it won't be an issue to any fish.

I have yet to have an issue with bio filtration using copper, it should not affect your cycling at all.

Oh awesome! So when my cycle finishes, should I do a 100% water change so I don't hurt my fish? Also- right now my tank is up, all it has in it is water that's been dechlorinated with AquaSafe (removes heavy metals as well as dechlorinates). If I add copper to it, will my water dechlorinator get rid of it? Is copper considered a heavy metal?