How long does it take to seed bio material?

[NOLAGT]

I know lots of post today...im gearing up to set my tank up.

My bro n law has a cycled tank with a wetdry. I am going to use pot scrubbies in my wet-dry. If I put some of my scrubbies in his wetdry how long will it take to have them seeded enough to help seed my tank once its setup and running? Days...weeks...a month?

 

[NOLAGT]

I did some searching...and I seen a week or two...guess that sounds about right.

 

[zennzzo]

I know lots of post today...im gearing up to set my tank up.

My bro n law has a cycled tank with a wetdry. I am going to use pot scrubbies in my wet-dry. If I put some of my scrubbies in his wetdry how long will it take to have them seeded enough to help seed my tank once its setup and running? Days...weeks...a month?

Just get a seed from his media...what ever he is using just get some of his media and put it in your wet/dry...Then you need to cycle your tank...I recommend fishless cycling...that's where you use pure ammonia drops instead of live fish...

 

[zennzzo]

I did some searching...and I seen a week or two...guess that sounds about right.

there is no "set" amount of time ...there are too many variables...temp, load type and efficiency of your filter etc... the only way to know for sure is by testing the water as it matures...

 

[NOLAGT]

He is running bio-balls in his with a large sand filter. There is a chamber I can stuff with my scrubbies while im building the stand and wetdry for my tank. Thats why I was asking to see if I should do that or just jack some of his bio-balls. I would rather use the scrubbies since I could use them as the top layer in my wet-dry and not have to remove them once its done.

I was going to try the fishless cycle...never did it before...but im all about trying some new stuff on this tank....like scrubbies vs bio balls and filter bags vs sponges.

 

[NOLAGT]

there is no "set" amount of time ...there are too many variables...temp, load type and efficiency of your filter etc... the only way to know for sure is by testing the water as it matures...

True...I was just wondering in general if I had a week or two before my tank was ready would it really seed in that amount of time. I will just do it anyway...just asking rather than working lol

 

[Tommydeal]

The longer you seed the media, the quicker your tank will cycle. of course quantity is also a factor so 100 scrubbies seeded for 2 weeks might cycle a tank just as quickly as 10 scrubbies seeded for 2 months. You should seed as much media as possible for as long as possible. Also, it might be good to use half of your seeded media at a time. I've had good results using half until the nitrite shows up and then using the other half.

 

[Toby_H]

In 1~2 weeks, yes you will have some bacteria in your scrubbies… and yes this will be enough to seed your tank…

Naturally, as described, the amount of bacteria will vary greatly on many factors and we should assume you will still need to cycle the tank, but yes you will have a base of bacteria which can grow into larger colonies during the cycling period…

It’s a lot faster to turn a little bit of bacteria into a lot, than it is to turn no bacteria into a lot…

 

[NOLAGT]

Thats what im thinking...his tank is only a few months old too so the bio load isnt big yet so there might not be much to seed on my scrubbies. He has 10 africans in a 135...but some is better than none.

 

[zennzzo]

I agree some is better than none.
Using the fishless method with no bacteria, a DIY wet/dry I built, on a 150 with 5 gallons of Bio-balls and a QuietOne 4000 pump, I got zero Ammonia zero Nitrites and 40 Nitrates in 12 days. Water from the water co. was 7.0 with no added chlorine and my temp was set at 85f till the perameters were 0-0-40...
So with adequate waterflow, temp, and pure ammonia, it can be done in two weeks from scratch.

If it were mine, I would have water in it on the floor even now to start fishless cycling...remember it is in the filter not the water, so if I had to empty out all the water to get it on the stand, so be it, I'd still have my filter(s) started...