Upgrading to new fry tank

Guppyluver4ever

Hi everyone! I need help, i thought I knew what i was doing, but now im a little scared so now i want to run it by everyone.

I have a 1 gallon fry tank, i know too small. I have more than 40 baby fry, so i bought a 5 gallon tank. I do constant water changes because it does NOT have a filter, so now the 5 gallon tank has a filter.

Alright so i was planning on just putting the gravel, the bubble wand and some water from the little tank into the new 5 gallon tank. And then i would just take some water from my well-established 20 gallon tank and then move all the fry at once into the new tank, then i listened to my plan as I told one of my friends, and started to feel unsure that this was going to work out. So now the question, can i do my plan, or should i cycle the tank and all that and introduce the fish gradually or any other ideas? Keep in mind both the 20 gallon tank and the 1 gallon tank have fish in it.

Thank You
Guppy LUVER

teddyzaper

i did it with a 10 and a 30 it works fine but just be careful there are no sick fish in the tank that u are transfering water from or any other things like plant fertilizer

Oldman47

Your best bet is to set up the new tank then clean you filter from the 20 gallon in the 5 gallon tank. Use it as your cleaning bucket. That will get the right bacteria started on the new tank's filter and then you can add the fry to the tank. Your chemistry should be fairly stable from the beginning but your testing will tell you if you need to do a few water changes before the new filter is ready for all of your fry. Meanwhile the fry will enjoy much better conditions than they do right now and you should have no cycle problems at all.

Rohland

Correct, the bacteria needed to cycle your new aquarium is found in the gravel, filter media, decorations ect. Not in the water.

Also if its a breeding tank / using it for raising fry most people recommend it to be bare bottom.

Guppyluver4ever

Thank you everyone, what i ended up doing is pouring water from the 20 gallon tank into the 5 gallon tank, untill it was about half the tank. Then I put about 4 handfuls of the 20's gravel in the tank. Then I put one of fake plants from the 20 into my 5, which happened to have some hitch hikers on it that i didnt know about (snails). ANyway the snails were a good test to see if my water was toxic hahahaha :) Just Joking

The thing is that the tank that the fry were in had gravel and I kind of feel bad not putting gravel, do they mind not having gravel???

Thanx everyone

Oldman47

Fry will do fine without any gravel, as will adults. The water holds nothing of benefit for the new tank but is at least the same water as the fry are coming from. The fake plant and handfuls of gravel will have a very small amount of the beneficial bacteria on them so they may help a little. I was quite serious about using the new tank to clean the existing filter as if it was a bucket you wanted to clean in. That will definitely give you a big leg up in getting the new filter cycled. Tank water does not ever get cycled. Bacteria live mainly on surfaces so water is a poor way to try to clone a tank. Cleaning a filter means getting any loose bacteria off and it will end up all over the new filter. I have even done it after I had fish in a tank and they all were better of because of it.

Guppyluver4ever

Thank You everyone