Awesome! The only fish moving in will be my 15-16” silver aro and a 12-13” Florida gar. I do have plans to add another fish or two in the near future but after the new tank is up and running well. I want to make sure they stay healthy after the move.
Cycling new 300 gallon?
- Thread starter peteagem
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ok , here's the easy way to establish a new tank.. take the filters off the established tank .. put them on the new tank, then put in the stock(fish) from the old tank .. there you go.. now add whatever new filtration you want to the new tank... but if the filters were good for the old tank/ stock it will work for the new tank..(bio) filtration is about load not tank size... make sure to test the new tank every few days .. this method is tried and true , but *nothing* is ever 100% , stuff happens...EDIT: if you are leaving fish in the old tank you obviously need to leave some filtration , so get other filtration established on the old tank (before you open the new tank, there are no shortcuts).. *if* all the fish are going to the new tank *take all the filtration to the new tank * and work "backwards" to establish the original tank as a "new tank"....
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When you move all your filters over with all the fish from the old tank, you might get cloudy water during the 1st week or 2 because a large portion of your heterotrophic bacteria will be living where most of the organic material is, which is typically the substrate. Don't worry about it. Your fish will be protected from ammonia and nitrite poisoning because a large portion of the ammonia and nitrite eating bacteria (autotrophic bacteria) will be in the filters.
So my faucet ph and my Established tank ph differ slightly. I use the api test kit and they are off a little. It’s kind of hard to tell exactly where the numbers land. Will my aro and gar adapt to it with no issues? If I fill the New tank with treated city water and the ph is off from the old tank how much of a difference in ph is enough to worry about. My tank is roughly 6.5 the city water looks closer to 6.8 or 7
Thanks
good catch , in that case use as much tank water as you can.. the fish should be able to adapt to the smaller change in ph... btw the fix for that issue is more wc's (long term) .. the more wc's the more the tank water will resemble the water supply... generally ph *goes down* as time goes by in a tank that gets older/ less maintenance ...
IMHO, you don't need to fret whatsoever. Yes, the pH is slightly off, but the fish will adapt quickly due to it being such a minimal difference. You don't really need to worry much about pH/hardness/etc.. when you're dealing with hardy fish like aros and gars. I feel like people worry so much about very little intricacy, when you're moving fish from one tank to another in the same home if the temperature is close you can just fish em out and dump em in.
in theory you may be right.. you want to replace those fish though?.. any little bit of temp / ph change puts a stress on fish.. not that it may kill them (but it could) .. any evening out of those variances helps.. i'd do just what he is suggesting b/c it may help, and it'll let him sleep knowing he is doing his best (and it's not that big of an imposition)...
Hello; First from what I read tap water pH can change in hours or days of sitting around. I mention this as a possible way to use fresh tap water in the new tank. By that I mean fill the new tank and let it sit with filters running to make sure all is well. I do this to give time to get the heaters adjusted if needed. Also is easier to take care of any problems without fish in the tank. May turn out the water will be a closer match to the old tank.
The general understanding I glean form experience and reading is fish deal with pH as long as it is not a sudden change. Another possible way to deal with possible differences in the new setup is the same way many of us use when bringing in new fish from a shop. I acclimate all the new fish slowly. Methods may vary.
Usually I have new fish in a bag of water. I float the bag for a while so temps can equalize. I then start adding some tank water into the bag a little at a time. After adding the tank water enough to suit I then pour out the bag water into a bucket thru a fish net. I catch the fish in the net and then put them in the tank. That last step is so there is a reduced chance of adding something unwanted to my tank. You are moving your own fish so could skip this las step I guess.
Let me add an observation which may or may not be valid. We have test kits for several water parameters. I sometimes get an impression many only pay attention to those things we can measure. I figure there will be a lot of other things in the water of a mature tank. Things we can not yet quantify. In past decades I did not take much caution when moving fish around from and into my home tanks. Best I can recall noting it worked well. I do recall fish taking a while to start acting normal sometimes, but they did settle in. I guess I am saying I never had fish go belly up from such a move. I guess it will depend on what the fish means to me as to how much extra care I might use.
That said there have been emergencies where I had to scramble to get fish into water and the fish did well enough. Say a cracked tank with nearly all the water leaked out.
Use as much care as makes you comfortable and good luck.
Correct. Although many sources claim that fish are very sensitive to changes in pH (as little as 0.2), this is simply NOT the case. I've experimented with this in planted tanks in which I've added CO2 gas which lowers pH. In one case, I mistakenly put so much CO2 into a tank that pH dropped from the mid 7s into the low 5s. Most of those fish exhibited visible signs of CO2 poisoning (oxygen deprivation) but none died because of changes in pH. I've always considered the idea of 'pH shock' a myth. Don't worry about it when moving fish to a new tank.
I've found the same to be true regarding KH/GH. pH and KH are related and understanding the relationship is important, but, in nearly all cases, fish are unaffected by changes in KH and GH.
Fish CAN be affected by changes in TDS and 'TDS shock' is real. This why slowly acclimating fish is a good idea, especially when moving to water with a lower TDS. Typically, softer water (water with a lower GH reading) will have a lower TDS ... but not always.
I agree. In addition, many people new to the hobby measure things like pH without really understanding what it means in fishkeeping practice. The pH test is included in kits because it has been standard for a long time. It can be a useful measurement when used in relation to KH and in understanding a great many other things in the hobby, but it need not be worried about when moving fish to a new tank (especially with an established filter).
