Moving My Aquairum

[DarrinLowe]

Well,

I've put this off for quite awhile, but my girlfriends dad isnt quite following the right upkeep for our aquarium so we've decided to move it.

We have given our fish away (Now that were more experienced we'd like to have fish that are a little more.. Interesting)

We are going to drain most of the water, and I am going to keep a bucket of the water we currently have, to assist in the cycling..
What is the best place to retain this water from?

I was personally thinking I would gravel vac the bottom and keep that smelly poop water.. xD
But I dont know if that is good, or bad for the cycling. If that has the proper, bacteria in it, or if that is just ammonia.

This time we will do our non-fish cycling properly.

Any suggestions for fish?

Mollies are out of the question..
We'd like to get something that goes well with others, and isnt going to take up, too much room.. The aquarium is 35 gallons.

 

[KittyKat]

The water won't help. Just keep the filter running with a supply of ammonia to keep the bacteria alive.

What size tank is it?

 

[Gilli]

Was your tank fully cycled before you gave the fish away? How long has it had no fish in it?

 

[3l3ctric]

You don't have to worry about keeping the water or a very long cycle if you can keep your gravel damp and maybe bring your current filter to the new location via a bucket full of tank water. You don't need to keep the extra water, but this way you will be preserving a ton of your good bacteria - it mostly lives in your filter and substrate, not your water.

Edit: This, of course, is assuming that you could move the tank and set it back up within the same day. I don't know what other steps you'd have to take to keep the bacteria alive if your move is extended.

 

[DarrinLowe]

Well the move went well, although the tank was in the cold for maybe an hour and a half in my back seat. The rocks remained damp.

We set it all up last night, filled it with water, then conditioner.
I am assuming because we didnt condition the water before putting it in, all the gravel bacteria was lost. We did put the filter in afterwards.

We will be keeping the filter and all of its current hardware (sponge, bio nodes and filter) for a while, then I am assuming we should replace them before we get new fish?

Currently we are using the Fluval U3 filter, I absolutely love it.

I did do a test with my API test kit on the Ammonia and PH.

PH was 7.0
Ammonia was 0-0.25

Although, I am assuming since we are pre-cycle I want the ammonia to go up before it goes down?

 

[KittyKat]

Gravel won't hold any significant amount bacteria if you aren't using an undergravel filter.

You want the filter to deal with 3-5 ppm of ammonia in 12 hours.

 

[DarrinLowe]

Hello,

So as of last night we made some big changes.
We bougth two large tanks from a lady, as terrariums. Turns out one of them is a 100 gallon aquarium.

So we transferred over the new water we put into the old one to re-establish it, and filled up to about 5 inches under the top.
We attained a fluval 405 brand new from a family friend for really cheap (he runs a fish store) and now we have it set up and filtering the water, with 2 layers of the bio-max nodes as provided, and replaced the carbon bags with lava rock bags, as we have heard good things about them.

We are aware of having to re-cycle entirely, and its not much of a big deal to us.

At the moment my only problems are, that we had only washed out the gravel once, not realizing that we were to rinse it out several times, and it has left a big cloud in our water. I am hoping this will clear up.

My only complaint about the fluval 405 is the quick-start instructions.. For a product that retails at up to $400 in Canada, they should put a little more consideration into the level of detail featured in these instructions, more specifically mentioning that the output nozzle is to be submerged in water, as stated in the User Manual. Instead of just saying cut the hoze at 4 inches above the rim and hope thats good XD. - Lesson Learned (User Manual > All)

 

[KittyKat]

$400? That's very expensive! I guess Fluval are a German company.. Sounds like you picked up two excellent tanks. If you want to clear the water fast, stuff once of the baskets with fine filter wool, replace the wool with new filter wool after 24 hours, and then 24 hours later, swap back to the noodles/lava rock/whatever and then start the cycle. If you can, do seed the bottom basket with some cycled media, even one or two small bits will make a difference.

 

[DarrinLowe]

Well,

initially we were going to take a part of the sponge from the old filter and put it into the new one, it was quite a hassle to set up the 405 and whilst setting it up the fluval u3 has been sitting out of water. I'm assuming this will have killed the bacteria?

I may go down to a local store and ask them if I can have some media or something from an aquarium of theirs.

As for the $400.. I think the petstore I usually go to for supplies is just pullin tail. It says its onsale for $239 and is 399.99 regular price.. But. It was on for $239 at a PetSmart. XD So thats absolute bull.

 

[Tizer]

Its about £100 here tops

 

[KittyKat]

The sponge would have been fine, as long as it didn't completely dry out, even now it might still be of help.