Best way to seed an aquarium?

Question

I have a 10 gallon up and running (will keep it running) and a 55 gallon I want up and running. How should I go abouts seeding the new aquarium with the old one without disrupting my biological filter in the old 10 gallon? Also, how do i change my filter cartridge in my 10 gallon without removing all beneficial bacteria? Do I replace the sponge too?

Answer 1

Beneficial bacteria is NOT contained in the water of a fish tank. Moving water from the 10 to the 55 will not help. It's in the filter media, gravel, tank decorations, etc. Don't change your filter cartridge out that frequently. Just rinse and scrub it in a bucket of used aquarium water. Don't run it under the tap though, the chlorine will kill the bacteria on it. It's ok to change it though, the bacteria is on the other stuff as well. I don't use those in my tanks, I use filter floss that I throw away every few weeks when it gets dirty. Don't change your sponge, just rinse it the same way I stated above.

To seed your new tank, you can put a piece of decoration from the 10 to the 55, or some gravel. But, you have to have an ammonia source in the 55 or the bacteria will die. Either with one or two fish-no more then that, the bacteria colony isn't large enough to handle more at that time. Or, you could try throwing a piece of cocktail shrimp in there and letting it sit for a few days to kick start the cycle. Just test the water to make sure there's no ammonia or nitrites before putting in the fish.

Or, if it's gonna be awhile, go to the pet store and buy a small mesh bag(a pair of new pantyhose with a portion by the toe cut out would probably work as well). Buy some bio balls from the pet store, and put them in the bag. Plop it into the established 10 gallon tank. Eventually, the bacteria will be on there, and you can plop that into the 55 when you're ready to get a few fish. I have a bag in 2 of my tanks, and I've done that method several times with good success-instant tank cycle. Even did it with my pond. I'd do this regardless of which option you choose, just in case,so you always have a way to quickly cycle a tank-especially if you have to use antibiotics in a tank which kill off the bacteria.

Answer 2

When you clean your filter, only replace one filter media. Next cleaning, replace a different media. (Assuming you have a filter that allows this).

The best way to seed your new aquarium is to set up the filter for the 55 g in the 10 g and let it run for a couple of weeks. If you just can't do this (it might not fit, for instance), then instead of cleaning the filter of the 10 g, take some of the media (either the sponge or the ceramic bio) and put it in the filter on the 55 g. You still need to feed those bacteria, so a pinch of fish food in the empty tank will help keep the nitrogen cycle going.

If you ever have to replace all your filter media at once, your tank will cycle, regardless of the water, the gravel, etc. The bulk of your nitrifying bacteria live in your filter.

We always have a couple of sponge filters running in addition to regular filters so that if we need to set up a new tank, we have a fully seeded filter ready to go. This way we can set up a hospital tank (for example) on an as needed basis only.

Good luck!

Answer 3

First and foremost, you must never rush anything when setting up your aquarium.
You can add a little bit of water from the 10 gallon when you do your next water change. Don't remove more than 35 % of the water from the 10.
It usually takes several months to fuly cycle a tank. You can add a little bit of water from your smaller tank, however, there are better ways.
If you are doing a marine tank, I would recommend that you cycle the tank with some live rock instead of any fish or invert. If it is a freshwater, then you can probaly get some tetras or other hardy fish to cycle the tank.

Most of your bilogical filtration is done by the bacteria in the water, substrate, and decorations, so chaning the filter won't have much effect on your biological filtration.
I don't even use any sort of biological filtration on my 10 or my 55. The bio filtration is handled by my live rock and all my levels are perfect.

No matter what you do, get yourself some good test kits. You need to keep track of amonia, nitrite, nitrate when cycling the tank.

Answer 4

Great answers, tikitiki and lady g!!

Remember, if you seed your tank the bacteria have to have a source of food in the tank to survive, otherwise, it's no use seeding it.

You can also swish your filter media from the ten gallon in the big tank's water every couple of days.

YOu can feed the bacteria by having a few fish in the big tank or by doing a fishless cycle. You can google it to find out how.

Answer 5

well firstly if you have a marine setup then cycling the water with live rock is lots more beneficial, if its a fresh then just put a few ornaments or rocks from the 10 gal into the 55 make sure you put it near the filter(works on both fresh and salt except not as good as live rock) whith your filter cartrige dont change it, depending what type of filter you have just lightly rinse all detrius out in some tank water then dispose of the dirty water (dont put it back into the tank) same with the sponge(just rinse it out dont throw it away), if you have a marine then i highly recommend live rock as primary filtration as things like sponge and filter socks tend to be nitrate factorys, which can be harmful to fish and fatal to inverts and corals ,if you dont have oodles of time to cycle your 55 gal with a couple of small rocks out of your 10 gal then buy a bacteria supplement like cycle it contains millions of beneficial bacteria and will cycle your tank within a week (well it did for my 67 gal reef) if you take rocks as well as use cycle on your 55 then its a good idea to put a capful or so of cycle in your 10 gal to make up for the bacteria loss, my email is [e-mail] if you want more info hope this helps!

Answer 6

Take soem water and filter mat and put them in new tank. Or you can go to pet shop and by some of the seeded mat.