Is My Tank Cycled This Fast?

[lozzah79]

It could work, yes. The only difficulty is in guaging what filter is best to move. The bacterial colony can't be judged by media size alone, the filters flow rate would come into play as this dtermine how much "food" passes through the media. I would move the larger of the 2 filters and the stock you suggest. Keep a close eye of water parameters, hopefully all will go well. The main area for concern tho is the smaller tank. You are going disturb the balance in there so this needs to be monitored very closely. Are you intending to keep the smaller tank going? If not just shift all your stock and filters, as you are only adding a snail and a molly to the load. It's quite safe, if you don't intend using the smaller filters, to simply put all the mature media from them into your new filters

yeah, my intention is to keep my smaller tank going but just lower the stock slightly. it is a lovely set up tank and the fish are really happy and healthy

i will try your first suggestion and put my fluval mini in the large tank and leave my marina i25 in the small tank. im pressuming my fluval mini is the better filter as it was the most expensive, i'd like to think this anyhow ha.

which fish and how many would you suggest to get the balance right.

ps its an apple snail ( roughly 2inch) and smallish platy currentl in the 125 lt

thanks for the help

 

[mossonthemoon]

If you really want to do a fish-in cycle, then I would do as explained above. However, do remember that a fish-in cycle means you will not be doing weekly water changes. You will be doing daily water changes, and sometimes even twice daily water changes. Many people do it, but most people would avoid that level of work if they had any choice in the matter.

 

[elmo666]

Am not familiar with either of the filters you have. To be honest, with regards to the stock movement, there's no way of knowing the correct amount. Move any shoal fish 2getha, try and split the fish size evenly. Be prepared to monitor the water twice daily and carry out water changes if the ammonia levels show any sign of increasing. Good luck, hope all goes well.

 

[lozzah79]

Am not familiar with either of the filters you have. To be honest, with regards to the stock movement, there's no way of knowing the correct amount. Move any shoal fish 2getha, try and split the fish size evenly. Be prepared to monitor the water twice daily and carry out water changes if the ammonia levels show any sign of increasing. Good luck, hope all goes well.

thanks i will give it a go later. this as all been a learning curve, i will get there eventually

 

[lozzah79]

ok, so i just took what i believe to be my lesser of my 2 filters ( marinai25) out of my 27l tank and put it in my 125l tank. i have also put my guppy in the big tank.

so now i have,

27l - as 6 neons, 2 small corys with established fluval mini filter.
125l- 1 apple snail, 1 guppy and 1 platie with established marina i25 filter + new bioflow 3.0 + added tetra safestart.

my reasoning being that it will be easier to have to change the smaller tank twice a day if needed than the larger tank. busy toodler darting around

fingers crossed.

 

[Aquascaper]

Once everything has settled down and everyone's happy I would recommend you stop replacing the Marina cartridges but gradually start replacing then with sponges and ceramics. This will give you a much more stable filtration with larger capacity.

You will need to cut the sponges to fit the 'chambers' from any aquarium sponge you can buy at your LFS and fill the last area (under where the overflow ramp is) with ceramics.

 

[lozzah79]

Once everything has settled down and everyone's happy I would recommend you stop replacing the Marina cartridges but gradually start replacing then with sponges and ceramics. This will give you a much more stable filtration with larger capacity.

You will need to cut the sponges to fit the 'chambers' from any aquarium sponge you can buy at your LFS and fill the last area (under where the overflow ramp is) with ceramics.

thanks for that. when my big tank is cycled i will try this then put it back in my smaller tank.

i have had the marina cartridge in a few months now and never replaced it just washed it once or twice with the fish water.

do you think that the marinai25 could have a beneficial effect on the big tank.

i have just done another test on the large tank and ammonia is slightly under 0.25, nitrite still 0 but nitrate as definately rose since this morn. it is now between 5 and 10.

when i got the tank on wed i was running it with the original filter pads for a few days. could it be possible this media still held beneficial bacteria even though the tank was sat empty for a couple of weeks.

thanks.

 

[elmo666]

Money saving tip. Do as aquascaper suggests, try and find a lfs with a pond section. I buy foam in large sheets, 2' square, they avaliable in loads of differnt densitys and work out far cheaper than the boxed up varities in the tropical section. (the bacteria die off in hrs without water flow/food source, the media would definitely be devoid of anything beneficial after 2 wks)

 

[lozzah79]

Money saving tip. Do as aquascaper suggests, try and find a lfs with a pond section. I buy foam in large sheets, 2' square, they avaliable in loads of differnt densitys and work out far cheaper than the boxed up varities in the tropical section. (the bacteria die off in hrs without water flow/food source, the media would definitely be devoid of anything beneficial after 2 wks)

thanks for the tip. my local store as a pond section, will take a look

 

[lozzah79]

hi,

just a quick question

i have just done readings on both my tanks

125l ammonia just under 0.25 nitrite 0 nitrate 10
27l ammonia 0.25 nitrite at least 4.0 nitrate 5

does this mean i am going through a mini cycle after taking my 2nd filter out. i have just changed slightly under 50% of the water in this tank. hope my fishes are ok

 

[mossonthemoon]

You should change as much of the water as you possibly can in the small tank until the fish have just enough room to be in swimming position. If the nitrite is 4 and you changed just under 50%, then your nitrite will still be at just over 2, which is far too high. Do it quickly and you should limit any damage done.

 

[elmo666]

It looks that way. Did you move any stock with the filter? I suspected you would have no way of knowing how much bacteria were in each filter, hence you now have a nitrite spike. You've taken the correct action, keep monitoting and do water changes to stay on top of things.

 

[lozzah79]

thanks guys.

i will do another water change now and test again.

how long should i wait before retesting.

thanks

It looks that way. Did you move any stock with the filter? I suspected you would have no way of knowing how much bacteria were in each filter, hence you now have a nitrite spike. You've taken the correct action, keep monitoting and do water changes to stay on top of things.

i moved the guppy into big tank, leaving me with 6 tetra and 2 cory cats in small tank. should i have moved more?

thanks