New tank yeah!

[glolite]

Hi folks. I'm nearly the proud owner of a 2nd tank It's a 200litre juwel so lots more space to play with. If I take some filter material from my cycled tank and gravel etc., about how long will the new tank take to cycle?

 

[WILDER]

When I bought a new tank, I took some gravel from another tank and placed in the bottom, then added new gravel to the top, took some filter media out of my fancy goldfish tank, and it cycled that day, only take gravel from another tank if you have no illness in that tank.

 

[sylvia]

Another way of doing it is running the filter you are going to use in the new tank on your old one. Leave it there for about a week and then, once you've setup the new tank, move it into there - instant cycle Just don't add all the fish at once - you wouldn't do that even in a cycled tank!

 

[thapsus]

Go to pharmacy (or somewhere else you can buy it)and buy 10% ammonialiquid.Try to get as much bacteria as you can (in filtermedia and in gravel) to the tank. Put 10ml of ammonialiquid (be careful) to the tank. This will get you 5ppm of ammonia to the water. Test ammonia and keep it in 5 ppm for a while by adding more ammonia if you need to. Then let all ammonia change to nitrite and nitrate. When ammonia and nitrite are 0 add little more ammonia to see if your tank is really cycled. Ammonia and nitrite disappear in one day if it is. If it is cycled then change all the water before adding fish because after cycle you have lots of nitrate in your water. By cycling like this you bacteria amount is really big and you will not have mini cycles when adding fish and your fishes escape from that stress. You can also add some fishfood every day when cycling.

To do this you need ammonia-, nitrite- and nitratetests. This cycle will take from 3 days to 4 weeks depending on amount of bacteria you can add in start. By the way, soil from good-cared flowerpot contains good bacteria also. You can add some soil to your aquarium for example in pantyhose (you can remove it later when it's in pantyhose, it is not dangerous to leave it there thought). Yes, I'm perfectly serious.



If you are impatient and want to add some fishes right away then just do as told. Put old filtermedia and gravel to the aquarium and add some fishes right away (or feed bacteri with fishfood). You will probably get little minicycles always when adding fish thought. But if you only add few fish at a time your ammonia and nitrite spikes only last a day. This weaken fish a little and they will be more impacted to diseases for a while. But this way to do it is ok too, just remember to add fishes slowly and everything will go fine.

Good luck!

thapsus

 

[Slyspy]

As thapsus says learn the way of the fishless cycle. It is quicker, no stock gets hurt and when it is done you can add all your fish at once.

 

[glolite]

Thanks to everyone for the advice
Don't know about the pantyhose though Thespas, mine could probably create enough bacteria to cycle the great barrier reef!