Tank Seeding

[Silvani]

Is the bacteria in the gravel from a goldfish tank safe to seed other non-goldfish tanks with? I understand that goldfish are very messy fish, and that they can be considered toxic to other fish. However the bacteria should be the same, if not stronger from all the ammonia they produce. Is a cupful of gravel, placed into a stocking safe to place in a tank for other tropical fish? Or will it be too toxic for them? I would like to do a fishless cycle on a 5 gallon tank and get a betta, and would like to be able to speed up that process.

I have had bettas before, I even had one that lived for 4 years. However they were in 2 gallon tanks which had to be 100 – 90% water changes weekly. So would like to have a cycled one that I can just do 20% water changes on weekly.

Thanks

 

[Karah's_Mommy]

I don't see why it wouldn't work. I used gravel from a guppy tank to jump-start a fishless cycle for a 5 gallon betta tank and it worked just fine. A cup of gravel would be fine. You could also run the new filter in your old tank for a few days too.