Will putting in a dirty filter speed up cycling?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
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oddballfish

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 4, 2010
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I have my 120G Cycling right now and I have like 15 tiny baby guppies in there from my breeding and I also put in a dirty filter from my other tank. I want to know if this will speed it up? and is it safe to put my leapord ctenopoma in there yet after a week of cycling?
 
yes it is THE best thing you can do to accelerate cycle
 
Test your levels. On my 150, I used seeded media and didn't even get a cycle. My Fahaka went in 3 days after setup. If there's 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and only a small amount of nitrates, you're good to go.
 
Used filter from a cycled tank will speed up cycling but only if the bio-load is sufficient to sustain the bacteria, 15 Guppy fry might not be enough meaning the bacteria dies back and then when the bio-load increases the tank goes into another cycle.
What are your test readings - Ammonia, Nitrites/Nitrates?
 
If you're talking about the entire filter, and it was properly cycled when it was running on the old tank, you can consider the new tank instantly cycled. But only up to the same level of bio-load as was present in the old tank.
 
I put a sponge from my Fluval 304 from my 75G into my FX5 for my 180, it never even went through the normal cycling, I threw some ammonia in and it was ready within a couple days.
 
The filter I used had been in the old tank at least a month it was pretty dirty. Im gonna buy some more test stips tommorow when I get 15% off at petsmart so far the ammonia is 0 ill have the petstore test the other part today and let ya know!
 
get liquid test kits the strips are *edit*
 
Sorry I meant water testing lol.
 
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