Seeding my new tank

[G8zzaj]

Quick question on seeding filter media please everyone.

I dropped a bag of chemical media (activated charcoal) in the established tank yesterday. If I take that out in a a week and pop it in the fluval FX6 for my new 180G will this help or has it not been in long enough?

I also saw King of DIY do a filter cleaning on an established tank and throw the water and detritus into his new tank. Is this agreed with on here?

 

[tlindsey]

I dropped a bag of chemical media (activated charcoal) in the established tank yesterday. If I take that out in a a week and pop it in the fluval FX6 for my new 180G will this help or has it not been in long enough?

Tbh you will be better off using some media from your cycled filter because it will have beneficial bacteria on it. That media will give your filter a jump start for cycling. Also a food source for the bacteria will be needed.
Fish in cycle
Fishless cycle using pure Ammonia, Raw Shrimp or fish food.

 

[Midwater]

No, IMHO. Charcoal - as you say - is chemical medium. To seed bacteria you need biological medium.

 

[esoxlucius]

As already advised the charcoal is chemical media, so no real benefits for seeding. In any case one week isn't really going to get enough BB on it to instantly cycle your new 180g anyway.

If I was you I'd set up the new 180g and get it running first. At this point it would be virtually sterile. Either use dechlorinator to rid the tank of chlorine, or just let it run for 24hrs and allow the chlorine to gas off naturally.

Then, when you next clean the filters on your existing tank, get the dirty sponges or filter floss and rinse the hell out of them in your new tank. The water in your new tank will look like sh*t but your filter will, in time, suck all that detritus in and trap it in your media, which is the whole point of the exercise. Don't fret at the disgusting sight of your new tank looking like it's full of sewage water, because all that disgusting gunk you squeezed in will be full of BB, it's exactly what you need at this point.

At the same time you squeeze out all the crud into your new 180g you need to then think about how you are going to "feed" your BB, ie, with an ammonia source. Otherwise they will simply die off and you've achieved nothing. This is where tlindsey advice about dropping shrimp in comes into effect, or using pure ammonia from a bottle. You can also use hardy "sacrificial" fish as an ammonia source but this method is frowned upon somewhat as it causes stress to the fish. Whichever way, YOU MUST HAVE AN AMMONIA SOURCE to feed your new BB.

Then it's just a case of using your test kit to check your parameters. This can take, well, how long's a piece of string, lol. The timescale can vary but be patient.

 

[Midwater]

When I set up my first aro tank about twenty years ago, to feed the bacteria, I did not use shrimp, or fish food, or pure bottled ammonia.

I pissed in the tank. (Am I allowed to say that?) I did not really piss in the tank, I pissed in the toilet, but put a cup in the way of my stream and collected some which I then put in the new tank.

Also I got a few tilapia fry and put them in the tank.

After a few days, the tank looked really horrible, cloudy, green and with a thick scum on the glass and surface. The ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels went off the charts. The tilapia fry, when I could see them, seemed happy enough. It took about six weeks for the levels to come down significantly, and the water cleared up.

The tank actually looked really good. And the tilapia had thrived, grown several times their original size.

Soon after that I got a small RTG and some local 2" ST.

 

[tlindsey]

I pissed in the toilet, but put a cup in the way of my stream and collected some which I then put in the new tank.

Lol but it worked.

 

[BigBeardDaHuZi]

I used shrimp the last time I cycled a tank. If you use the shrimp, you will want to change it fairly often - or be prepared for some putrescence. Seafood decomposes very quickly. I would highly recommend leaving the shrimp in some kind of net so it is easy to scoop out.

Eventually, I just switched over to ammonia in a bottle. So much cleaner, easier and easier to measure

 

[Rocksor]

Benefical bacteria will grow on charcoal (activated carbon). You could say it's both chemical and biological media. It's just another surface for bacteria to grow on. Charcoal eventually stops working after it adsorbs enough organic compounds, and it will still keep working as biological media.

Here's the kicker, adding more media to an established tank won't necessarily seed that media since the established tank has already achieved a balanced population of bacteria. If the bacteria population is at 100, it will stay around there unless the ammonia and nitrites increase. Ammonia and nitrite eating bacteria take about 24 hours to grown when there is more ammonia/nitrite in the water column. One thing to note about activated carbon is that it will temporarily reduce the ammonia eating bacteria when the organic compounds (from fish poo and food) are no longer being converted into ammonia. Depending on the bioload, it may do that from 1-3 weeks, then the activated carbon quits working.

 

[jjohnwm]

Actually, charcoal or activated carbon is a terrific medium upon which to establish bacteria and can be left in a filter indefinitely to act as a biomedium. But it is expensive, and what you are paying for are its biofiltration properties, which are quickly depleted as it adsorbs impurities and "fills up"...and after that happens, it's just expensive black gravel.

But esoxlucius is "bang on" or "spot on" or "bang the spot" or whatever it is they say in that language they speak over there; a week just isn't long enough to achieve anything in this context. And DIY Joey, if I recall correctly, doesn't actually add any significant amount of dirty water from the old tank; this would be counterproductive, because the good-guy bacteria aren't floating around loose in the water. His goal was to add that lovely brown sludge that he squishes out of old sponges and other media, because the particulate matter that forms the brown goop is where they little guys hang out.

Edited to add: Dang it, beaten to the punch again! This time it's Rocksor who types faster and more concisely than I do!

 

[jjohnwm]

...Here's the kicker, adding more media to an established tank won't necessarily seed that media since the established tank has already achieved a balanced population of bacteria. If the bacteria population is at 100, it will stay around there unless the ammonia and nitrites increase...

Definitely! Adding some new media to the established tank, but removing a similar quantity of the old mature media to use in the new tank, would be the best course. I always have at least a couple sponge filters running in established sumps just so they can be quickly removed and dropped into new tanks that will then be almost completely cycled.

Taking the sponge out of the old tank reduces the bacterial population slightly, but as Rocksor stated, the generation time for these critters is about 24 hours so the old tank will be back to full capacity very quickly, no harm done.