Any idea long a seeded sponge filter, is needed before the new Mechanical filters can fully take over???

[Magnum Man]

curious about how long a sponge filter with cultured benificial bacteria from another tank, needs to be in a tank, with new filters, before the media gets seeded in new mechanical filters??? Maybe 2 weeks??? Sooner or longer???

 

[AJ356]

Do you mean how long a mature sponge media put into a new aquarium will "seed" brand new filter media that are in the same cannister/housing?

 

[Magnum Man]

How long it will take to seed the new filters… the sponge filter was seeded and came from the holding tank the fish were in prior

 

[AJ356]

As far as i know the bacteria do not necessarily make their way onto the new media from the mature media. They will be rooted in some kind of biofilm (which is good). You will have pockets of bacteria on the mature media you put in, and on the brand new media, bacteria will likely just build up in their own sweet time. That's my understanding, but as long as you have mature media in there, that's the main thing. I just wanted to try and understand your question, as might help others answer, or take a wild guess, and a wild guess it will be i think....... Sorry I haven't got a timescale for you.

 

[Magnum Man]

I’m sure the foam filter can handle the current bio load, but the fish count ( bio load ) will be doubling in the next week or two… I will of course be monitoring my ammonia, and doing extra water changes as needed… just kind of curious how long it will likely take for the bio media in both mechanical filters do develop to the point that I can go to regular water changes, and remove the foam filter…

And does adding the foam filter help with speeding up the cycling process at all???

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Just adding a new filter or filter media does not do a thing to create more bacteria. More ammonia does this. But, you should get some bacteria to colonize the new foam.

Most of the bactreria lives inside a biofilm it creates for that purpose. The film attached to hard surfaces. But a small percent of the bacteria will be motile. the are not that way to process ammonia in the water, but to be able to move to someplace else if the ammonia dries up. Of course in a tank there is no place to move like there may be in the wild. How many individual in a colony may become motile depents on the Nirtogen availability in that water, When this drops they set out for better places to live. This is one of the strategies the nitrifiers use to survive over time when bad conditions prevail.

What happens in a tank where a new filter is added is some of these bacteria which are motile will end up in the new media. But since the ammonia level is not changed the total number of bacteria in the tank will not change. However, ever day in a tank where the ammonia creation is stable, some of the bacteria will die and an almost equal number will be created by reproduction (the bacteria divide).

If the ammonia loading in the tank increase, the birth rate will exceed the death rate. However, if the ammonia level goes down, then more individual bacteria will than are being created by reproduction.

The result of all this is for any amount of bacteria to colonize the new media means an equal amount will decline in other media.

There are better methods for what you want to do. These all involve adding viable bottle bacteria or filter squeezing into a new tank and then dosing it with ammonia to make the bit of bacteria with which you start, reproduce. With the bottled bacteria you can put in as much as you need if you can pay for it. the mire you have the less time it will be before the tank is very ready for fish, lots of them. If you want to go this route I suggest Dr. Tim's One and Only or Tetras Safe Star or Safe Start Plus.

If you use filter squaeezings and only have a sihgle tank from where to get them, you will need to do an abbreviated fishless cycle to get the bacteria to multiply. If you can take squeezing from several tanks it will take less time to get the new media/tank cycled.

edited to fix typos

 

[Colin_T]

New filters normally take 4-6 weeks (but sometimes longer) for the colonies of beneficial bacteria to develop in them. It's roughly 2-3 weeks for the first group of bacteria that convert ammonia into nitrite. And another 2-3 weeks for the next group to develop and turn nitrite into nitrate.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

The amount of time any tank will require to have the cycle complete is dependent on two factors, The first is how many bacterial cells are present at the outset as well as what strains. The bacteria has to reproduce to result in sufficient numbers to handle the second factor- the concentration of ammonia that the tank will be creating.

Of course there are other factors which will also determine the time things take. Adequate oxygen, adequate inorganic carbon, proper temp. and pH matter and adequate amounts of some trace element matter. Most of these things come in with our water and from equipment we have in out tank. Others we may have to add.

All of the above factors are what ultimately determine how fast or how slow any cycle goes. The one thjng we can know for sure about a fishless cycle is that a tank where we are adding only 1 ppm of ammonia will be cycled faster than one where we are adding 2, 3 or even 5 ppm. The higher the concentration of ammonia, the more bacteria which will be needed to handle it.

A lot of this stuff is common sense as long as we do not start to overthink things or confuse ourselves by listening to a disparity of voices at the same time.