Filter Media?

[bmonki]

my mother in law has an old tank, which is currently running with no filter she wants to get a filter the same as ours (an internal 3 stage one with carbon and crystal max) - what i was wondering is my filter has two sponges, if i swapped one of mine for one of the new ones firstly would it affect my tank as my filter is quite happily cycling what we have would the loss of half the bacteria cause us problems? secondly i know it would kick start her filter but her fish are living in pretty high ammonia and hava gotten used to it... would the absence of ammonia and addition of nitrite/nitrate kill them from the shock?

 

[faildeadly]

my mother in law has an old tank, which is currently running with no filter she wants to get a filter the same as ours (an internal 3 stage one with carbon and crystal max) - what i was wondering is my filter has two sponges, if i swapped one of mine for one of the new ones firstly would it affect my tank as my filter is quite happily cycling what we have would the loss of half the bacteria cause us problems? secondly i know it would kick start her filter but her fish are living in pretty high ammonia and have gotten used to it... would the absence of ammonia and addition of nitrite/nitrate kill them from the shock?

Donating one of the sponges might cause your filter to mini cycle as you'll be losing half your bacteria stock. you'll just need to monitor and take action if needed.

As for the effect of an ammonia free tank, I would have thought that even though the fish 'have gotten used to it', it'll have an impact on their lifespan. Why not start doing water changes in her tank to slowly bring down ammonia levels until the bacteria have caught up?

 

[bmonki]

so rather that donating half our media to just do a fish in from scratch and monitor it?

 

[faildeadly]

so rather that donating half our media to just do a fish in from scratch and monitor it?

Well, you're going to have to do a fish in anyway, but if you wanted to donate some media to her it would speed things up. It doesn't have to be the whole sponge. Just enough to 'seed' the bacteria. In the same way you'd take a small cutting from a plant.

 

[fluttermoth]

You could donate some of your media, but no more than one third, or it will affect your tank. I'd cut the sponge in half and give your MIL that, then you'll only be giving away a quarter of your media

I would start by doing small water changes; perhaps 20% daily to get the ammonia/nitrite//nitrate under control, but add the filter as soon as you can.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

You can give her up to, I think, 1/3 of your media without harming your tank. You can chop up sponges so you may need to give her say half of one of your sponges and just replace it with half of a new one.

How long has your filter been cycled for?

Regarding the resulting change in the water chemistry of her tank; it will be a gradual change as the bacteria develops and the filter sucks up any waste. Her tank won't just be filled with loads of ammonia because bacteria will have grown where ever it can cling to, so while it may not be perfectly clean water it won't be toxic sludge (well...depending on what fish she has in there I suppose...)

All make sense? If your media is very young and you can't sacrifice any then yes, considering what the fish have been living in, adding a new uncycled filter is better than nothing!

 

[faildeadly]

You could donate some of your media, but no more than one third, or it will affect your tank. I'd cut the sponge in half and give your MIL that, then you'll only be giving away a quarter of your media

I would start by doing small water changes; perhaps 20% daily to get the ammonia/nitrite//nitrate under control, but add the filter as soon as you can.

*really proud this is the same as the advice I've given. 'tis amazing how much I've learnt through reading this forum.

 

[fluttermoth]

You could donate some of your media, but no more than one third, or it will affect your tank. I'd cut the sponge in half and give your MIL that, then you'll only be giving away a quarter of your media

I would start by doing small water changes; perhaps 20% daily to get the ammonia/nitrite//nitrate under control, but add the filter as soon as you can.

*really proud this is the same as the advice I've given. 'tis amazing how much I've learnt through reading this forum.

That's great; it doesn't take long to get a grip of the basics, does it

I really only posted to back you up

 

[bmonki]

ours has only been fully cycled for about 3 weeks - thats why im a little worried about taking some out. the sponges we have are hollow and have carbon through the middle so to cut one in half prob wouldnt work as the carbon could then just fall out

she has a 250ish litre with 2 tiger barbs, 5 'sucking loaches', 2 massive corydoras, and about a million guppies (they are small and very colourful so i assume endlers)

oh and 7 red platy

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

hmmm I'd be tempted to just put a filter in the tank and be done with it. There will be bacteria in the tank already to support all of those fish. It's not the usual fish-in cycling scenario.

 

[bmonki]

will a massive water change be a bad idea? the water has gone very green and cloudy again

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Yes it will be, just do small frequent water changes of maybe 20-25%. There is such a thing as old tank syndrome where fish that have been living in very polluted tanks are shocked to death bu being put into a clean tank or cleaning the tank too much. It needs to be a gradual process of cleaning.

 

[bmonki]

Well, just tested, ammonia 0.25, nitrite 2.0. I need to vac the gravel and i came armed with my prime,

Which option is safer:

1- 50%+ water change, dose 5x prime to detox the nitrite and remove the remaining ammonia

2- 25% wc and overdose prime

3- 25% wc normal dose of prime

Seriously you've never seen such a layer of crud on the bottom of a tank. Vile.

I can't even see the corys and they are huge (4.5-5" and 1" wide)

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

I would do 25% while vaccing the substrate and dose enough prime for the whole tank. And I would do this for several days in a row then after a few days increase the amount of water being changed to maybe 40 or 50% while vaccing the substrate each time.

Like I said, if they have been living in the tank like it is for a while, you don't want to risk shocking them.

Here's a video on the right way to vac gravel, a lot of people don't do it right is all lol

I would do sections at a time, moving on to where to left off when you do the next water change.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=l4_az4Yw4Ns

 

[bmonki]

The most often i could do it is every other day, minimum, w live a little way away and mil only has one useable arm lol, it's actually a 370litre... my maths deserted me. So still 25?