gammerus

I was told that you can cycle a tank by putting gravel from another aquarium into some panty hose, and let it sit in your new tank. How long would you have to let it sit? Alternativly if you put in some largish rocks or gravel from your other tank into the new one permanently would that be anough to cycle it? I am getting a new 2.5gal tank on tuesday and I need to know how to cycle it quickly (without biosphere)

gammerus

nm, I just found out about the filter trick

chickadee

The rocks and gravel are in effect another bed for bacteria to grow on...it is probably the fastest way other than having a piece of filter media to use. Filter media from an old tank is almost an instant cycle as you really have a cycled filter media already in the tank. If you are going to use the gravel or rocks remember that they have to be transferred immediately and cannot be out of used tank water for more than a couple of minutes until they are in the new tank. They should cycle your tank within a week to 10 days I would think but I have not used the method and I think it makes a difference what filter you are trying to seed. The easiest filters to seed are those with foam or bio-wheel cartridges. The hardest in my opinion are the Whisper filters. I only used one but it did take longer to cycle.

Rose

AesSedai

I'm using a Whisper 10 filter (w/flow control) and I added some ceramic rings into the filter basket (bottom of intake and output sections) to give bacteria a sort of condo to live in because Whispers have a bag around the carbon and it's on the bag the company says bacteria will grow but since you change that once a month or more, you throw out the bacteria. Bad design so I agree that Whispers are harder to cycle...because they don't include the right kind of media and you need to sorta insert your own that you know is better.

gammerus

Well the filter I have is a sponge filter just ripe with bacteria..a week you say? well I suppose a week in a warm 80' gallon tank is better than a week in a cold cup He is still so young that even a 1gal tank seems huge, cant wait to get him into a nice decorated 2.5gallon (one upgrade at a time)

chickadee

Just cut off a piece of your sponge and use. It doesn't have to be a large part but attach it to the new filter and it will speed things along by a lot! I always keep an extra sponge filter bubbling along in the back of one or another of my tanks so I have one in an emergency but I also keep Bio-spira all the time too. But the extra filter works best in a q tank when you do not want to have the sick fish exposed to any ammonia as Bio-spira does have an ammonia and nitrite spike associated with it even though they are small.

Rose

gammerus

Very good.

0morrokh

THe fastest way to seed a new filter is to run it in an already cycled tank for a week or two.

cherryrose

gammerus

sounds like a plan. as soon as I get my tank on tuesday I can begin cycling