Hi everyone! I have a cycled (what I believe is a 20 gal) 20 gal tall tank with perfect parameters. 7 brilliant rasboras and one black orchid browntail betta. I’m wondering if I siphoned the water from my established tank into my 10 gal on the left, would I have to worry about cycling at all? Or, would it just really kickstart the cycling process? I’m completely willing to just do a normal cycle but I wanna save myself some extra time 😅 TIA!!
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Posted by mighty_meow_
27 Comments
I mean yeah
I think I read the beneficial bacteria is in the substrate or filter material and not actually in the water.
I’m new to the hobby tho so take that with a grain of salt.
Yes it will be fine. It will take a few days for the beneficial bacteria to build up in the substrate but it’s not that big of a deal.
Honestly I think it has more to do with the gravel and decor. I’d prioritize transferring some of that. Filter media could be good too depending on the type of filter you use. I’m no expert though but that’s how I restarted mine. I also used Seachem stability
Nope. The bacteria isn’t in the water (much). It would help, but you would still need to worry about cycling.
What you can do is stick a sponge filter into the cycled tank and run it for a week or so. Then transfer *that* to the new tank.
So it will help speed it up but what you really want is the substrate and filter media the trick me and my friend use is set up the new tanks filter on the old tank and run them I parallel for a bit also take some plant trimmings from the old tank to start growth in the new
Bacteria needs a surface, oxygen and water movement to thrive. There is almost no bacteria floating in the water column. You need to run another filter in your current aquarium for a week or 2 to get bacteria to colonize it and then moving it with that bacteria.
If you already have a filter for the new tank, set that up and swap some of the media between the two filters. It will cycle the new tank and the bacteria culture in the rest of the old tank will repopulate the new media.
The second your fish poops or you add food to the new tank, the water starts to turn toxic. Normally the bacteria in the substrate and on the glass and in your filter convert that safely, but if you don’t have any of those things, what will do it in your new tank?
No, transferring the water isnt gonna do anything. But you dont have to wait a month+ to cycle, you already have an established filter with your current tank.
You can either
A- Run your new filter in your old tank for a couple weeks then move the filter to your new tank
B- Put a piece of filter media from your old filter inside of the new one (for example you can rip a piece of cloth off of the old filter media bag or something and shove it inside of your new filter)
Also moving plants and decor over as they house beneficial bacteria as well.
Seconding the comment that you want to migrate filter media. Even better if you can move some substrate too. The water won’t make a big difference in cycling. You will still want to let the new tank “cycle” a bit since it won’t be 100% ready to go immediately but I may only take a few days. Your biomass will be small so you need to get the bacteria time to colonize to the right quantity to handle the bioload.
Bacteria does not live in the water. The best way to jumpstart a cycle would be to take some of the filter media (just snip off a corner or something, maybe a finger’s width across) and put it into the new tank’s filter with the new media. It’ll still take a week or two for the bacteria to multiply to the point of sustaining fish, but that’s obviously much faster than starting a cycle from scratch
Drain a gallon of water, wash your filter out in the water , dump that in the tank, along with a handful of substrate. Add some prime, add a hit of ammonia, test after 24 hours. If you only have nitrate left , you’re “instantly”cycled. Not ideal, but I’ve jumped tons of tanks this way. best way is if you had a sponge filter , or run filters side by side for a week.
I always keep an “extra” sponge filter running in one of my healthy tanks. In the case I need to run a hospital tank or start a new aquarium, I have a ready to go filter already seeded for a quicker cycle of a new tank. Just make sure if you use it for a hospital tank, you are sterilizing/cleaning/replacing sponges after use before it goes back into your healthy tank to re-seed again so you’re not infecting your healthy tank.
I usually start a second filter in my main tank and give it like a month maybe two and then I use that to seed my new tank It works every time and a handful of substrate
If you have any spare lava rock you can let them sit in your current tank for a few days and then move them over to the new tank.
Fritzzyme
Will work even better if you just take some of that filter media in the old tank and pop it in your new filter. Still do water changes every day for like 3-5 days, but you will be golden. I’ve don’t it on about 7 tanks.
It will help but not fix.
Bacteria you need live on surfaces. It’s the glass, substrate, plants, scape parts, filter media.
What would help better: moving one or two of these. Like some of the substrate, one of the filter sponges, some plants.
It won’t fix it right away, but will help with accelerating.
Other boosters could be adding bacteria to the filter, conditioning water with black tea (just very little) or katappa leaves, amber cones.
Then make sure to aerate properly so that there is enough oxygen for the bacteria to grow at the right speed.
Adding a fish or two on day two will also help. A constant source of ammonia is essential.
It’ll help but you still have to cycle. Most of the bacteria that helps clean the water is in the filter medium and substrate.
What you could try to help it cycle even faster is to get some of the dirty filter medium from the old tank and put it in the new filter. It won’t cycle immediately but it’ll speed it up a bit.
Squeeze you filter media into your tank and filter
Nope, but if you say, took the cartridge out of the 20 gal and cut it in half, to stuff into the new 10gal HOB filter you could speed up the process.
Better to transfer the filter from old tank to new to make it cycle faster. Not instant but definitely faster.
Bacteria is on surfaces. Imo, you could put an extra filter cartridge in the cycled tank. After a week or so, put it in the new tank. Should be a decent amount of detritus on it tho.
It would be better if you could take some of the filter media from the cycled tank and put it in the new one
I keep an extra sponge filter always running in my established tank to get instant cycles for new tanks. This is the best way. Not enough of the bacteria live in the water column for it to cycle a tank by its self.
Unfortunately not. You would need to add the filter media from the cycled, established tank into the new one and wait for it to be cycled. I actually JUST did this and the good thing is that it cut my cycling time down for my new tank to just 2 weeks!