new tank, but used biowheel

[Ali1]

i purchased a used 55g and a new emperor 400. I understand the nitrogen cycle, but confused on a few things. My buddy had a biowheel running in his 10G for several months now, but he is leaving the hobby now, so i took his biowheel straight from his filter.


this small wheel does not fit on my emperor 400, so do i just let the wheel float in the water? Does the tank need to be cycled, even though i have the floating biowheel?

i still have my emperor 400 running, along with my XP3

 

[dchaos52]

i purchased a used 55g and a new emperor 400. I understand the nitrogen cycle, but confused on a few things. My buddy had a biowheel running in his 10G for several months now, but he is leaving the hobby now, so i took his biowheel straight from his filter.


this small wheel does not fit on my emperor 400, so do i just let the wheel float in the water? Does the tank need to be cycled, even though i have the floating biowheel?

i still have my emperor 400 running, along with my XP3

No, just floating the wheel around would not work, the reason for the bio wheel is that the water turn the wheel, thus exposing it to the air and the "good" bacteria, if its not spinning, the water isnt being exposed.. so i dont think it would work

 

[Wolf3101]

That wouldn't transfur the BB to the new filter so basicly the tank will still need to be cycled.

 

[Ali1]

thanks guys

 

[Nic]

get a small pack of bio spira and add a few fish....

 

[nachocheese70]

It'll still work. The wet/dry biowheel idea is to expose as much surface area as possible to the air for maximum gas exchange (basically, maximize O2 absorption into the water film). In a fully submersed filter, all gas exchange is only at the surface area of the tank (minus any surface films that may be reducing exchange efficiency) and whatever air bubble surface area. More O2 means a greater bacteria density.

FYI, I pretty much completely cycled a tank completely in around 5 days by using the biowheel from a current tank (it's a Magnum 350 Pro, so it had two biowheel) by just throwing it into the new tank and using ammonium hydroxide as the ammonia source. Had the usual ammonia, then nitrite, then nitrate spike, with ammonia and nitrite dropping to zero.