Question About Cycling With Mature Fiter

[Hypnotoad]

Sorry about the tons of questions at the minute?

I'm about to start cycling my new fluval edge but I was reading up on here about using mature media and I had an Idea.

My other tank is running with a Fluval 205 filter which, on inspection, has the same media in it as the edge just larger. If I was to take one of the sponges from my 205, cut it to size and placed it in the edge filter. Then took some of the biomax and placed that in the tank would that reduce or completely eliminate the need to cycle as basically all the media in there is mature or am I getting the wrong idea with this.

Im not trying to rush this as Im happy to cycle but I thought this would reduce the time.

 

[electropunk06]

Yes in theory you could completely eliminate the cycle but you will always have some form of cycle when adding new fish to a tank, the bacteria on the media will adjust to the stock level.

In my opinion using mature media is the best way to cycle a tank

 

[fluttermoth]

Yes, using properly matured media does eliminate the need for cycling.

You just have to stock appropriately (so, for example, if your main tank has 100 neons in it, and you took a quarter of the media, you could stock with 15 or 20 in the new tank) and feed sparingly (in both tanks) for a week or so, and test frequently in case of mini-cycles.

This is how most of us with multiple tanks set up new ones; I haven't done a 'full' cycle for about 20 years!

 

[Hypnotoad]

Ahh right that makes a lot of sense now. Ill go ahead and do that this week.

Do you have to wait a few days after putting the media in or can you put the fish in same day. Ill probably do it Tomorrow and put the fish in Thursday

 

[fluttermoth]

You really need to do it the same or next day or the bacteria start to die off.

What I do is set the tank up and get it planted (I always fiddle with my aquascaping for days on end ), up to temp and check nothing's leaking and that all the equipment is working properly.

I feed the tank with a few pinches of fish food so I have an ammonia reading (only 0.5 or 1ppm, as I won't be fully stocking as you can after a full fushless cycle) and then last thing at night I add my mature media to the filter. Then I test when I get up in the morning and if the ammonia is zero, I know I'm good to go get my fish

I guess if the ammonia wasn't zero, then I'd swap what media I'd put in for another piece and check again in the afternoon, but I've never had that method fail for me, and I do like to know that the filter is cycled before I risk fish in there.

 

[Hypnotoad]

Cheers for the heads up. The tank is actually filed up and up to temp but I will be putting the new media in tomorrow night ready to put the fish in Thursday.

Thanks

 

[fluttermoth]

Just do a lot of extra testing to make sure everything's running as it should