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How to set up a new tank in a hurry

2K views 15 replies 8 participants last post by  Hallyx 
#1 ·
I need to set up another 5 gallon as fast as possible. The water has only been cycling for a week...my questions are A.) If I take a well seasoned sponge filter out of a one of my tanks (this tank also has a box filter) and put in new tank will that speed up the cycling process? B.) Can my other tank handle removal of the old sponge with new sponge? 0 Nitrite 0 ammonia and 30 ppm reading for nitrate in the cycled tank. Thank you so much for reading!
 
#2 ·
If you take a sponge filter out of a cycled tank and move it over it will carry the cycle over to the new tank. The cycle will be fragile for a few days/weeks so you have to be careful to not over load it with lots of new fish.

When you removed that sponge from the cycled tank you need to put a new filter on that tank also. The cycle in that tank will also be fragile so you need to be careful with this tank also.

What I have done in the past is do a 50%l water change on the cycled tank, wash the sponge filter in tank water(1/2 gallon) this will flush some of the bacteria out of the filter. Take the water from the change and put it in your new tank, take the 1/2 gallon of water you washed the filter in and poor it right on to the new filter media. This will help seed the new filter faster. This won't fully cycle your tank like swapping the filters but it will speed the process up a lot and keep your main tank stable.


A good practice is to run a extra sponge filter on a cycled tank then when you need to set up a tank fast just pull that filter and put it in your new tank.
 
#7 ·
A good practice is to run a extra sponge filter on a cycled tank then when you need to set up a tank fast just pull that filter and put it in your new tank.
That's a good suggestion and it's precisely why I run double sponges on my betta tanks.

You need a source of ammonia to feed your beneficial bacteria. Are you doing a fish-in or fishless cycle?

Tetra SafeStart works really well and many people have had luck with it in jump starting their cycle. An air stone & raising the temperature to about 84° will help as well.
 
#5 ·
I would add some fast growing live plants like anacharis.

my .02
 
#6 ·
Thank you all so much!! I did each and every one of your suggestions I added anacharis too :) Waiting to do a water test in a few hours to see how tank is doing...Even though this was a bit hairy at first I mustered up everything I needed (minus a box filter will order one) I am a little excited because I am using sand for the first time too. Fingers crossed and I will hopefully post a successful update thanks to everyone here!!!
 
#8 ·
Cloning tanks is a very common thing with folks running multiple tanks, especially for folks who breed & sell, as stocking can vary. Let's say for ease of math you have a 10 gallon tank with 10 guppys. The filter media is capable of sustaining 10 guppys biologically, or half will work with 5 guppys. If you take half the media, and 5 guppys, set up another 10 gallon tank with that you can be reasonably assured you'll have no cycling issues.

A mature colony of nitrifying bacteria is capable of doubling in 18-20 hours. As bacteria go this is rather slow, for ease of math, water changes & my life schedule I like to ballpark it at doubling every 24 hours. This being the case, you can generally take 1/3 of the mature media out of a tank, and add it to a new tank that contains 1/3 the stocking of the donor tank, and expect no issues. For safety's sake it's a good idea to fast the donor tank for a day before pulling media, and feed both tanks lightly for the next week, less food means less waste produced. This helps to eliminate the risk of any spikes. Removing only 1/3 rather than half also leaves a bit of margin for error. By all means test the water the first few times doing this, until you feel pretty confident on how things work out.

Rarely are tanks stocked like our 10 gallon example, much of it is guesstimating. You'll have some smaller species with larger species, so there is a bit of guess work involved. The fasting & light feeding helps to accommodate for this, the testing assures you're headed in the right direction.

Many times I'll get a lot of fish in, mostly angels, 200 to maybe 500 at a time. I flip back & forth between breeding angels & buying overstock from other breeders, 30 tanks & 1k gallons to play with in the fishroom allows me to do this.

I'll often take a tank with 10 angels, and add 100+, with nothing more than a large water change every other day for a week. Knowing the nitrifying bacteria will double every 24 hours, the tank with 10 angels can handle 20 by the 2nd day, 40 by the 3rd day, 80 by the 4th day, by the 5th day it's a done deal. On day 2 it's a 75% water change with a triple dose of Prime, same with day 4, day 6 gets a 50% with a triple dose of Prime & everyone is happy. Prime will tie up ammonia for 24-48 hours, into a form that doesn't harm the fish, but is used the same as ammonia by the nitrifying bacteria. It also does the same to nitrite.

Remember that a mature colony of nitrifying bacteria doesn't mean your tank that just cycled a couple weeks back. Most of the large sponge filters I run have been in service for years, good sponge isn't cheap but it's worth it. Nitrifying bacteria also have been shown to go dormant in a previously heavily stocked tank that is currently stocked more lightly, and rebound to heavy stocking considerably quicker.

So to start with plain cloning, 1/3 of the media, 1/3 of the stocking, feed lightly, test & be ready to do water changes as needed. Beyond that feel free to push the limits, provided you do have a good backup system planned out.
 
#9 ·
I never expected such amazing answers! The good news is I understand everything fully ;) I can't thank you enough for your time posting all of this valuable information! I am becoming an "accidental" tank cloner! I am also cycling a 10 gallon too I seem to have very healthy guppies!
 
#11 ·
Prime and other chemicals that lock up ammonia have a bad side effect.
Although the ammonia is locked it still test positive in most test kits like the api ammonia test kit.

The danger is you test ammonia, add prime, and still test ammonia so add more prime even though the initial does fully locked up the ammonia.

Prime is actually dangerous to fish because it also locks up oxygen. To make matter worse the fish show the same symptoms as ammonia.

If you use prime I highly recommend you test for ammonia using a test kit that differentiates between free and locked ammonia. One test kit is the seachem ammonia multii test kit. I also believe the in tank ammonia dot only reacts to free ammonia. The idea is you only use prime when free ammonia is detected.

Or do what I do is add live plants which consume any ammonia present the bacteria have missed. And in the process also consume carbon dioxide and add oxygen also. Much better then chemicals.

As usual just my .02
 
#12 ·
You would have to so severely overdose Prime in the average tank to see any affect in the O2 level that a wise person would be calling a shop or posting online what to do if the accidentally dumped the whole bottle in their tank. With the heavy stocking I'll often have, along with the double to triple dose often used I'd be seeing problems, which I haven't in years. No fancy gadgets in the tank, heaters, sponge & box filters, anyone running a hob or canister is way ahead of me in tech years.

Anyone with chloramine in their supply will also have a slight ammonia reading at times after a water change, chloramine being composed of chlorine & ammonia. If this scenario was an issue we'd be seeing it in countless topics, here, as well as on other sites.

Are plants more natural? Sure, for folks who want to go that direction. You're still going to want to use a dechlorinator that neutralizes chlorine for water changes, leaving that ammonia split from the chloramine for your plants & bio filtration to take care of. Sodium thiosulfate crystals are dirt cheap, only chemical you'd add if you care to go that route. You can also go with no water treatment at all, which is probably best left for another topic. Some of us don't run a lot of lights, or have substrate, so plants really aren't an option. My watts per gallon of lighting is around 0.25W.

You could bring up that adding anything to really soft water will increase the total dissolved solids, which includes the dissolved minerals composing the water hardness. The TDS increse will affect fish the same as a hardness increse, which would only really apply to very soft water & very sensitive fish. You could also bring up adding any chemical to your water should be avoided, which is true, but the main purpose of Prime is to make chemicals that are already added that are unsafe for fish more safe. Some people have an aversion to chemicals in general, when you mention that water is a chemical (Google dihydrogen monoxide) they go on how it's a "safe" chemical due to being found in nature. So is cyanide.
 
#13 ·
Prime does not lock up ammonia it forces the conversion NH3 to the less toxic NH4+ which usually is pH dependent. While the NH4+ maybe part of a larger molecule when using prime the ammonium is not lock up from the biofilter. It is simply held in a less toxic state for ~48 hours before it starts to revert back to NH3 this gives the biofilter time to deal with the NH3/NH4+, the biofilter will/can use both and the same goes for plants.

Some ammonia control products do actually lock up ammonia and can effect the biofilter, but prime is definitely not one of them.
 
#14 ·
My new 5 gallon fry tank is doing fantastic! Thank you all so much I learned a tremendous amount from all of your posts! Water is testing perfect it is also crystal clear. I will be planting this tank I have an enriched sand for my plants I can't wait. But I am going to slow the build down now that my fry are in there. Oh and the other tank that helped donate to this one is doing just perfect as well :)
 
#16 ·
I used to think that too, Mikaila, and it's all over the internet. But, according to Seachem, it is incorrect.

Prime "locks" (Seachem says "binds") the ammonia into a molecule that they call Prime/ammonia complex. (A water chem expert told me it was aminomethanesulfinate.) This molecule begins to decay immediately and releases the locked/bound ammonia over the next day or two. If it worked by adding a hydroxyl (H+) to the ammonia molecule, it would lower the pH. Prime does not effect pH.

API AmmoLock works pretty much the same way. I think Aqueon does too. According to Kordon, Amquel+ actually breaks the nitrous molecules (NH3, NO2, NO3) into their constituent atoms. They have not yet responded to my request for clarification.
 
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