eagerinsight

I have 2 10 gallon tanks, 1 cycled with fish, 1 uncycled with fish. I built a "water bridge" between the tanks, but waiting for the uncycled tank to cycle before connecting the two tanks. Because each tank has its own filter I decided to save money by using a water pump to move water from one tank to the other, this way there is circulation through the water bridge.

My question is, if I install the bridge with the tanks in their current condition, will the cycled tank help speed up the cycle of the other tank or be able to handle the new fish load? I figured this is like when adding cycled filter media to an uncycled tank? Or will this disrupt the cycled tank's bacteria and leave me with basically 2 uncycled tank?

I should mention that the cycled tank has 3 platies and the uncycled tank has 2 platies. All 5 platies in a single 10 gallon tank was ok for a while, but a few aggressive fish led me to buying a separate tank.

finmama

hmmm if you did a small water change daily it might be ok. Could you cut or take a bit of the filter media from cycled tank to put in the filter in uncycled tank? And/or move a bit of substrate over.
If you did those things Im pretty sure it would be safe, just make sure you are testing for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.
If/when you set the bridge up I wanna see a pic, it sounds neat!