How Long Should I "soak" A Sponge Filter?

HI everyone,

I am now in the process of starting a second tank for platies as they have been breeding quite efficiently lately and it's getting a little too dense in their 10 gallon now. Their tank is running for around 6 months with a Topfin HOB filter and showing stable 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 20-40+ nitrates readings between WCs.

Last week I put a small sponge filter in place of an air store in their tank to "soak" it with BB + added a little Seachem Stability to help a process a little. My question is - how long should I keep this sponge filter in an "old" tank to make sure BB colonizes the sponge before moving it to the new tank?

I already have another (Tetra Whisper 10i) HOB filter in a new tank running with Stability and some crushed flakes, but I want to (hopefully!) complete the process much quicker by moving an already colonized sponge. Any thoughts on timing or on the whole idea?

Thanks!

 

If you didn’t hook up an airstone to it and it’s just sitting randonly in the tank, it’s not going to colonize bacteria. If you hooked up the sponge filter, it would take about 3 weeks in a cycled tank.

 

If you didn’t hook up an airstone to it and it’s just sitting randonly in the tank, it’s not going to colonize bacteria. If you hooked up the sponge filter, it would take about 3 weeks in a cycled tank.

I hooked it up to an air line, of course, sorry, I should've mentioned it explicitly.
Thanks, looks like I have at least 2 more weeks to wait

 

Oh okay gotcha! Yeah it should be good after two more!

 

HI everyone,

I am now in the process of starting a second tank for platies as they have been breeding quite efficiently lately and it's getting a little too dense in their 10 gallon now. Their tank is running for around 6 months with a Topfin HOB filter and showing stable 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 20-40+ nitrates readings between WCs.

Last week I put a small sponge filter in place of an air store in their tank to "soak" it with BB + added a little Seachem Stability to help a process a little. My question is - how long should I keep this sponge filter in an "old" tank to make sure BB colonizes the sponge before moving it to the new tank?

I already have another (Tetra Whisper 10i) HOB filter in a new tank running with Stability and some crushed flakes, but I want to (hopefully!) complete the process much quicker by moving an already colonized sponge. Any thoughts on timing or on the whole idea?

Thanks!

Hello cla...

Bacteria grows very quickly, so a sponge filter should be ready to go into a new tank in less than a month. You'll need to add fish to the new tank very slowly and test the tank water to make sure the bacteria is working.

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