Tank Cycling

[Davy]

I have set the trigon 190 up and have transfered my Eheim2026 (from my other tank which Im moving my existing stock from) into it and running it along side the juwel filter in it.

How long would it need to cycle, done water tests this morning and are

Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
NITRATE less than 5
PH 7

If I am going to get ammonia spikes etc how many days into the cycle should I expect them??

Davy

 

[black angel]

I would keep checking it every couple of days for three weeks. When i moved my old filter into the new juwel tank I didnt notice any fluctuations but just keep checking to make sure.

 

[Squid]

Being a bit of a newbie to all of this, i have a few questions about what I would have expected to happen.

If you transfered an external filter from a cycled tank to another tank, i thought it would mean that the new tank would then be cycled?

If you didnt transfer the fish, then the bacteria would die off? thats a definate i think..?

If you did transfer the fish, then why would you expect and ammonia spike if the filter already had enough bateria for that bio-load in the other tank? Is it because it would not have been the sole source of the bacteria?

If the old filter provided enough bacteria for the tank to be cycled, how does that help prepare another filter, because if you already have enough bacteria in that filter, then why would bacteria build up in the new one? If the bacteria did move around alot, then surely half would be in one filter and half in the other, so the new fiter would never be fully cycled enough to support the current bio-load if you removed the old one?

Sorry for the questions.. i just wondered .. and appologies this doesnt help you Davy, and i have hijacked your thread..!

Cheers
Confused of Guilford..

 

[rdd1952]

I would pretty much agree with what black angel and Squid said. Since you moved the filter over, I would not expect anything other than a very mild mini cycle. Although I don't have any coldwater tanks, my experience is that the vast majority of the beneficial bacteria are present in and on the filter media. That being the case, the filter you moved over with the fish should be able to handle their waste just as it has been. As Squid said, if you move the filter and not the fish, the bacteria would begin to die off from lack of food. The tank probably isn't 100% cycled but I would imagine it is 90 to 95 percent so spikes shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Squid]

I would pretty much agree with what black angel and Squid said. Since you moved the filter over, I would not expect anything other than a very mild mini cycle. Although I don't have any coldwater tanks, my experience is that the vast majority of the beneficial bacteria are present in and on the filter media. That being the case, the filter you moved over with the fish should be able to handle their waste just as it has been. As Squid said, if you move the filter and not the fish, the bacteria would begin to die off from lack of food. The tank probably isn't 100% cycled but I would imagine it is 90 to 95 percent so spikes shouldn't be an issue.

if the old filter was removed after 2 weeks.. would the new filter be able to cope, as would you not be removing a fair amount of the bacteria, as this was the original bacteria and so would not require much new bacteria to grow in the new filter?

 

[rdd1952]

If you remove the old filter after 2 weeks, you definitely would be taking part of the bacteria out. Over time, if the 2 filters are processing the same amount of water, the bacteria would balance out with each filter having about half the bacteria. Basically the old filter is providing a seed to speed the cycling but the new filter would pick up bacteria quicker if you were able to move some of the media from the old one into it. I assume that this new tank is an upgrade and is larger so the new filter will be handling more water/waste than the old one so after 2 weeks, it should contain more bacteria than the old one. Also, since bacteria multiplies exponentially, losing say 30% of the bacteria isn't really as bad as it sounds. That much will redevelop pretty quickly. I would do water checks for a week or 2 after removing the old filter just to make sure you don't get an ammonia spike then either.

 

[Davy]

So if I dont put my fish in the bacteria will die??

So will I put my fish in, I am transfering from a smaller tank which I had been running the Eheim in to speed the cycling of the new tank.

So is it safe to put the fish in??

Davy

 

[rdd1952]

If you move the filter over, move the fish with it. Otherwise, as stated, the bacteria will die off from lack of food (ammonia) unless you add ammonia just like a fishless cycle. If you don't move the fish though, will that not leave them in an unfiltered tank or do you have another filter running in the current tank? I don't foresee any problems with moving the fish straight over with the filter other than possibly (but maybe not) a small mini cycle.

 

[black angel]

I started stocking slowly to let the newest filter catch up slowly. How many fish do you have to transfer over? Maybe taking a couple over for a week would help keep the ammonia going before transfering the rest.