Is the tank cycled?

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Dr_Shakalu

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Mar 28, 2007
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Hey everyone. Well, my daughter is finally old enough to have her own fish tank. I got her a 10 gallon tank, hob filter, heater etc... Well, I know about cycling a new tank, but I was just wondering if I use the water, gravel, and some media from my already established tank, would the 10 gallon be automatically cycled? Any response is greatly appreciated,
The Doctor.
 
Adding water from your 10g will have no effect on whether or not your tank is cycled, as the bacteria aren't free floating, but adding gravel and filter media will.

The majority of your beneficial bacteria is in your filter media, some of it is on your gravel, and a small amount of it is on all other surfaces of your aquarium. Moving the filter media and gravel from your other tank will give you enough bacteria support however many fish you already had in your other tank.
You may have a very small ammonia spike, but it shouldn't be very noticeable or last very long as long as you don't start adding extra fish.

(Sorry I reread, you're planning on adding SOME of your gravel/media from your other tank to the new tank?)

If you're only adding some of the media and gravel to the new tank then adding fish then no, the tank will not likely be completely cycled but it will VASTLY shorten the time that the cycle takes to complete. You will already be starting with a small colony of bacteria to jumpstart the cycling process. So rather than taking a month or more for the tank to cycle it should take about a week, maybe less depending on the amount of bacteria and the fish load.
 
If All the gravel was from an established tank, and more than 50% water from old tank, I think it be safe to say its half cycled. I usually do that and wait like a day and everythings fine.

You could also put the filter from the new tank on the old tank for a few hours, let some bacteria accumilate on the new filter media.
 
MarlboroMan;1039421; said:
If All the gravel was from an established tank, and more than 50% water from old tank, I think it be safe to say its half cycled. I usually do that and wait like a day and everythings fine.

You could also put the filter from the new tank on the old tank for a few hours, let some bacteria accumilate on the new filter media.
Click to expand...

The water contains no established bacteria, so adding water will have no effect on the cycling process. In fact I've tested this back when we were cycling a few tanks at once. Adding water from our cycled tank had no effect on the length of the cycle.
Same with hanging the filter on the tank for a few hours. Unless the media in the new filter has direct contact with the old filter media it will take much much more than a few hours to start a bacterial colony. Nitrifying bacteria takes 8 hours or more to double, and that's if there is already a healthy colony.
 
really i'd say just take some of the media from the other tank, slap it in the filter for the 10 and call it good. add some (not all) of the future stock and it should be good. at most you might have a small spike of ammonia at first, then a small spike in nitrites, but nothing that would harm any but the least hardy fish.
 
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