# quick starting a sponge filter in mature tank



## basil (31 Oct 2012)

Morning,

Woke up this morning to find my 120l shrimp tank motionless - the powerhead had packed up during the night!

I need to get some filtration up and running tonight. I dont want to replace the powerhead as I'm selling the tank in the next couple of weeks.

Question is, if I drop a new sponge filter into this mature tank seeded with some of the mulm from the existing filter sponge, will i experience any nasty ammonia spikes?

Quick starting / maturing a filter is not something I've had to do before and I normally allow 4-5 weeks for a sponge to mature in a sterile tank. 

What do you reckon - recipie for disaster or a safe solution?  

Thanks

Mike.


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## billy boy (31 Oct 2012)

I had the same problem last year when my 205 packed in on my shrimp tank i had a spare 105 and just cut the sponges out of the 205 to fit the new filter and then treated the tank with some mosura bt-9.
And all was fine, Hope this helps


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## dw1305 (31 Oct 2012)

Hi all,


> if I drop a new sponge filter into this mature tank seeded with some of the mulm from the existing filter sponge, will i experience any nasty ammonia spikes


It should work, but it won't really work just as a sponge in the tank because you won't have any water flow through it.
If the tank doesn't have a huge bioload you may find things are fine without any water movement.

Could you cable tie the sponge around an air stone (if you have an air pump?) You won't need much biological filtration just for the shrimps and that should be fine.


> I dont want to replace the powerhead as I'm selling the tank in the next couple of weeks.


Buy a second-hand Maxijet, they are very reliable and cheap as chips, I'd just keep it as a spare, with a spare sponge <http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=12412>. 

If you really don't have any other form of filtration, and the tank is reasonably heavily planted, you could lower the water level fairly drastically. The plants will still deal with any ammonia from the shrimps, and the larger surface area to volume ratio (with the lowered water level) will mean that oxygen levels should remain higher purely via diffusion. I'd stop feeding the shrimps (and plants) and if you use CO2, turn it off. 

You could also leave the light on 24/7 for a few days, this will mean that the plants will produce oxygen all the time via photosynthesis. Some plants do all right under 24 hours light, some don't. In this case you could leave CO2 on and carry on feeding the plants.

cheers Darrel


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## basil (31 Oct 2012)

Cheers for the advice guys. I've set up and seeded a new air driven sponge filter and dropped that in along with an airstone to keep o2 levels up. No co2 running in the tank, but I've dropped water level to half to help o2 exchange.

Also dosed with some Genchem Beta Glucans and Biozyme. Shrimps seems happy so far........  

Thanks,

Mike


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