I am in the process of setting up another tank and have been "running in" the filters in already established tanks in prep for the new tank. The question I have is how long would it take for the bacteria from the established tank to "seed" in the new filters? a week? or longer?
Thanks
Depends on the Tanks, what you have to understand is that Bateria quantity relies on supply and demand. There is only ever enough bateria to break down the nutrients in the water as this is the food for them... If there is a drop in nutients then some of the bateria will die, and as the nutrients increase the bateria numbers will also increase. So if your old tanks are well filtered then the bateria concentration in the new filters won't be great... What u need to remember with both old and new tanks is that you should always add fish slowly, ie if you have 2 fish in a tank, and u add 2 more the bateria numbers also have to double. Imagine what happens if you were to add 10!!!
as you can see there is no hard and fast answer to your question.. All you can do is add fish to your new tank slowly and keep a close eye on them for the first week, and if you notice them stressing do water changes with know water (either aged or from 1 of your ggod tanks)
The other thing is that if you put your filter on your new tank and you don't add fish for a week or 2 most of the bateria that u have tried hard to grow will die due to no food, and ur back to square 1!!!!
Matt
if you are trying to establis a new tank just put all the filters in your new tank and through in 6 feeder goldfish. the waste these guys would produce is plenty to feed you bacteria. it will take about 2-3 weeks for you tank to go through the cycle but it will be done.
plus you can feed you goldies off when you finished win win.
[quote:ccc8a8cfda="waltec"]Depends on the Tanks, what you have to understand is that Bateria quantity relies on supply and demand. There is only ever enough bateria to break down the nutrients in the water as this is the food for them... If there is a drop in nutients then some of the bateria will die, and as the nutrients increase the bateria numbers will also increase. So if your old tanks are well filtered then the bateria concentration in the new filters won't be great... What u need to remember with both old and new tanks is that you should always add fish slowly, ie if you have 2 fish in a tank, and u add 2 more the bateria numbers also have to double. Imagine what happens if you were to add 10!!!
as you can see there is no hard and fast answer to your question.. All you can do is add fish to your new tank slowly and keep a close eye on them for the first week, and if you notice them stressing do water changes with know water (either aged or from 1 of your ggod tanks)
The other thing is that if you put your filter on your new tank and you don't add fish for a week or 2 most of the bateria that u have tried hard to grow will die due to no food, and ur back to square 1!!!!
Matt[/quote:ccc8a8cfda]
Exactly right.
But don't get too bent around the axle about it, so to speak. I've "seeded" a new tank numerous times with no problems. I just transfer a portion of the uncleaned media from the established filter plus a portion of rocks and gravel from the established tank. I also consider the fish load and don't go crazy putting too many fish in the first hit. For example I started a 3ft tank from an established 4ft with the fishload in the new tank only 10 juveniles. So the bio load wasn't massive for what I seeded into the tank.
Like Matt said, it's not an exact science. A tank usually takes approx 4 weeks to get established from scratch, so in seeding a tank I've found the following a fairly fool-proof approach in the first month:
a. Test the water daily for ammonia and nitrate levels.
b. Don't feed the first couple of days then feed only once a day there after, missing a day of feeding once a week.
c. Change a 1/3 of the tank water once a week.
Gradually increase your feeding there after and perhaps decrease the water changes depending on your situation/preference (at very least every 3 weeks is my recommendation for an established tank).
If any levels look like they might be getting too high in the first month increase the water changes and decrease the feeding until the levels stabilse again.
HTH :wink:
Thanks for the info guys, I was planning on introducing slowly, I was just hoping that by running the filters on the existing tanks I would give the new ones a bit of a kick start.
Thanks for all your help.