New 56g tall

HI just picked up my new tank yesterday, MTS strikes again

 

My questions for start up, I have a 200 A/C and a MinI A/C already seeded, the new 300 A/C, I got this one with the new tank, I nead to cycle this tank ASAP should I use all 3 Aqua Clears on the tank to get it going, Also when filling the tank should I just use new water or I could fill it with tank water out of my 165g and my 135g, maybe 20 gallon out of each tank with the last 16g new water, or just take 56g out of the 165g tank to fill the new tank? Also iam using black gravel in the new tank same as the 165g should I put a few nets full of old gravel in the new 56g tank?

 

I would think that if you just took the seeded ceramic noodles from A/C's and put them into the A/C 300, you would be good to go.

I would just add all new water to the tank (unless there is a ph difference between your tap water and the water of any tank you are moving existing fish from. Other than that, all you are doing by using old tank water is adding nitrates.

Using some of the old gravel would be good, since there is benificial bacteria living in that gravel which will help with the instant cycle.

 

I'm not familar w/ your filters. If there's a way to take old media and put into new filter then that's the way to go. I always use new water.

 

I don't really think it matter much if you use new or old water.

I also don't think you need the bags of gravel. From what I've read, gravel really doesn't house that much bacteria to make a difference.

 

I'm not familar w/ your filters. If there's a way to take old media and put into new filter then that's the way to go. I always use new water.

yeah put some old filter media in the filter let it run for a day FULL of water and than if the temperature is right your good to go with fish you can put a reasonable amount of fish in at once because ALOT of bacteria live in your filter media

 

The only good using old water in the new tank would do you is shorten the acclimation time for the fish if you are moving them from one tank to the other. The water will not help at all with the cycle process so all it would do is make it easier to match the water parameters between the two tanks quicker.

I personally would run the two larger filters at the same time if you have room on the tank. That way the new filter will begin to grow some bacteria while the old filter attempts to handle the bio load. This would also let you keep the old filter cycled for emergency purposes. I try to always keep at least one extra filter running on one of my tanks so that I have a filter for a birthing or hospital tank ready to go all the time.

 

Thank you everyone for the tips, Iam only putting 2 adult Angels in the new tank so the bio load shouldn't be to much, But the PH in my tap water is 7.4 and because of the rocks I have in all my tanks the PH is about 7.8, so to reduce stress should I use old tank water for start up to try and mach up the PH a bit better?

 

IMO, using some of the old tank water is a good idea due to the pH difference between the tap water and the tank water. Temperature and pH shock causes more fish deaths than any other water parameters do. Going from dirty water to totally clean water can be very stressful on them as well but it isn’t as stressful as going from a high pH to a low pH or going from a high temperature to a low temperature is. The closer you can match these two parameters the less stress they will be subjected to.

Although using water with a pH of 7.4 to do water changes isn’t too bad in your tanks that are running around to a pH of 7.8, I would personally think that setting up a new tank with it would cause lots of stress to the fish if you move them in to fast, so if you decide to use totally new water I would use a very slow acclimation period because Angles can be very sensitive to quick pH and temperature changes.

Now if you do use the water from your other tanks you could do a light gravel vacuum while collecting the water from the older tanks. This would give you some nasty looking water but it would have some of the good bacteria in it that is living in the old gravel. Over a few short hours the junk will settle out of the water into the new gravel and get picked up by the filter so it would clear up fairly quickly. When I squeeze sponge filters out into a new tank to instantly cycle it the water clears up normally in less than two hours.

I would still test the water over the next week or so to watch for any ammonia spikes but if you use some of the old filter media from the other tanks in the new filter and use some muck water (as I call it) gathered from doing a vacuum on the old tanks I wouldn’t expect to much trouble with ammonia but it would still be wise to watch for a spike.

Good luck with the new home for your Angels.