I have an established 70 gal tank, moderately stocked. I put a sponge filter in this tank to allow it to populate with bacteria. The plan is then to move it to a brand new 5 gal holding/QT tank so that I can immediately stock it and not have to fishless cycle it with ammonia. How long would you say that I need to keep it in the 70 GAL before its populated with bacteria and ready to transfer to the small tank? I was thinking about 5-7 days but please opine with other thoughts.
Question related to fishless cycle
- Thread starter erik333
- Start date
I had done the same thing, put a sponge filter in my 150 and moved it to a 45 gallon QT tank. My fish arrived earlier than expected, the sponge filter had sat in my big tank for a week, maybe a couple days more and I just put it in the QT with new fish yesterday. I'm going to test the water later on today to see if it's showing any ammonia or nitrites and will let you know. I also put a sock full of ceramic rings and gravel that I had in my filter though, so results may vary some unless you can do the same.
Sent from my iPad using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
Sent from my iPad using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
5-7 days seems a little too short. Id think a minimal of 1 month. Longer the better if you can wait.
At least 4 weeks to get some bacteria on there to support your 45 gallon QT tank, even then there may not be enough, so you will have to test for ammonia and nitrites everyday. Prior to putting in the sponge filter, you had enough media to support your current 70g. The bacteria population would have stabilized by now to maximum capacity. The best thing to do is pull some established media from your other filter on the 70g and put it into the QT tank.
i'm going to give it a try with a shorter period of time. I'm going from a 70 gal tank, to a 5 gal tank that will have one or two 2-3" plecos in it. I think the sponge filter should pick up plenty of bacteria in a weeks time that will be OK for 1-2 small fish in a tank that is a fraction of the size of where it was cultured from. I can always test by adding a bit of ammonia prior to putting fish in to see if the filter takes care of it.
Nitrifying bacteria only colonize to the population needed to support your tanks bio load and only live on surfaces. so in an already cycled tank seeding a brand new Sponge filter will take longer than it would if the tank was cycling. so 4-8 weeks is necessary. However it sounds like you have your mind made up your only waiting 5-7, so why ask for advice? If you have any media, substrate, or decor from your 70, you would have more success moving that than trying to seed a sponge filter in that time frame. Good luck
Just an update, go for longer. I tested the water on my QT tank today that I was using a sponge filter I had used in my main tank for a little over a week as well as placing some biomedia from the main canister into some of the QT's hang on backs and the ammonia was showing at .25-.50 ppm. Nitrites were 0, and I didn't test for nitrates because I was in a rush and needed to do a water change for them.
Sent from my iPad using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
Sent from my iPad using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
Thanks NIGELK. /// CATFISHACR, I hear what you're saying. Let me phrase it this way. If you were going to put a 2" fish in a 5 gal tank as the only resident, would you fishless cycle? I'm just curious. I would think that it would be OK to not have to cycle the tank due to the low bio-load, but I'm not an expert.