TreyGiles

Okay, so my cheap little aqua tech 10-15 power filter is not performing as good as I would like it to. With that said, I recently started shopping for a new power filter. I found a penguin 150 bio wheel filter at petsmart for a good price. I purchased it and took it home to hook it up. Well, the cut out on the hood of the aquarium was to small for the penguin 150 to fit, so I took the hood off and cut it (Thank You Dremel) so that the new filter would fit. It turned out great! I took the old bio media from my old filter and placed it in the new one so I would not start a mini cycle. How long should I leave to old bio media in the new bio wheel filter? I'm thinking it will take about a month before the bio wheel has enough good bacteria on it to make it safe for me to remove to old bio media from the filter. How long do you guys think it will take?

mike67

You can ask LFS to give you some and they should and you won't have to wait. Or if you can find a container big enough to put wheels etc in and squeeze them out into some water from tank and add back to it transfer will be immediate. Will try to find video on you tube and post it here.

Lucy

Leave it in for at least 2 weeks, but the longer the better. Just keep an eye on your water parameters.

TreyGiles

That's what I thought. I will leave it in there for about one month just to be on the safe side of things.

Lucy

Sounds good!

ctclee

Is this what you are looking for mike ?

Cycle a tank in 3 minutes

Tigerfishy

TreyGiles I notice you had to cut your hood. I am going to have to do this soon (also replacing an internal filter for an HOB filter due to high fish loss), would love to know how you did it. (Sorry to hijack, but it's sort of relevant!). You can msg my profile or whatevers easiest, but it's good to know you had to do the same and I was wondering how to do it without breakage or anything!