So I got the media from my sister, I put her media in my filter to cycle my tank.. How long should I leave it in there?
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Cycling with media from a currently running tank... Question
- Thread starter theroque55
- Start date
I take it your adding in fish at the same time?
If so i would say maybe 2 weeks to be safe and to give the new media time to grow its own BB...
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If so i would say maybe 2 weeks to be safe and to give the new media time to grow its own BB...
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I would keep the mature media from you sisters tank, give your sister new media. Once the new media has matured in your sisters set-up, give your sister her old media back and take your freshly seasoned media for you set-up. It should take at least a couple weeks, but could take as long as a month or even longer.
LFS will sometimes let you place a bag of filter media in their set-up to accomplish the same but you could run the risk of "picking something up" by way of parasites or worse.
LFS will sometimes let you place a bag of filter media in their set-up to accomplish the same but you could run the risk of "picking something up" by way of parasites or worse.
The bacteria need a source of ammonia. Preferably just ammonia, IMO, but you could use fish if you don't want to buy a jug of ammonia for cycling. The tank is ready when ammonia and nitrite are zero and nitrate is greater than zero. Basically, you're gonna need a test kit. It's a good investment, anyways, and will come in handy beyond simply when you need to cycle tanks.
What I have done is just start with used media, wait a day for water to stabilize as far as chlorines/pH/temp and then slowly start adding fish.
Juxta, already had a test kit. 4 Juvies in my tank now, theyre doing great. Just didnt know how long to keep the used media in. thanks Boldtogether and eklikewhoa!
Hello; The beneficial bacteria(bb) in the old media will eventually colonize the other surfaces of the filter and hard surfaces of the tank as you seem to be aware. There are likely two small areas of caution. One is when you decide to add more fish. For a while the bb population will adjust either up or down to balance the ammonia available as a food source from the fish's metabolic waste, any decay that may be going on and while some members have questioned the idea, I have thought that live plants produce waste products during the respiration phase of their life processes. At any rate, should you add too many new fish to the tank at one time there may be an ammonia spike at that time. I try to add fish to a new setup a few at a time with a few days in between to allow the bb to catch up.
The second period of concern could be when you replace the old dirty filter media with new. If it is in good condition , it could simply be lightly rinsed in tank water during a water change. This is felt by many to leave a lot of bb on the filter medium. I have tried it myself and see the sense of it. Another option is to put new media in the filter and simply suspend the old media in a mesh bag for a while. As stated by others after some weeks the bb will be in the other areas of the tank. Good luck