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External Filter Cycling

KipperSarnie

Member
Joined
23 Jul 2016
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427
Location
Aldington Kent
I'm extending the fish room, moving the partition wall, buying new tanks etc.

Is there any reason why I cant start to cycle the new external filters on existing tanks so they are ready when required?

Would it effect the filters already on the tanks?
Would the new tanks be ready for use almost immediately?
Your thoughts & ideas are welcome
 
s there any reason why I cant start to cycle the new external filters on existing tanks so they are ready when required?
No.. :)

Would it effect the filters already on the tanks?
Huh? No.. :)

Would the new tanks be ready for use almost immediately?
No! Ofcourse not.. It's not only the filter doing that job, actualy the substrate and plants do the better part of it all.. So as long the substrate and plants aren't matured enough your matured filter media will only aid "a bit" to speed up the process. Even with using partialy matured substrate and already transisioned plants and matured filtermedia in a new setup, i would wait at least a week or 2 to let it settle and come to rest and check the water parameters before putting in extra bioload as fish and food and such. :)
 
Would it effect the filters already on the tanks?
Would the new tanks be ready for use almost immediately?

Yes and No to those two questions.

Is there any reason why I cant start to cycle the new external filters on existing tanks so they are ready when required?

No, no reason why not but you'll never know how much bio load they can handle. I am not sure what your type of fish keeping experience you've had and how long but I get the idea it is long and you've heard of old school cycling....

Id' hook those filters to buckets/plastic containers of some sort....adding ammonia from a bottle daily(plus bits of mature media in the filters to speed it up)Dose to 1-3ppm daily and monitor with ammonia/nitrite test over period of time it would need to cycle the particular filter just right. It is my opinion, tried and tested....then stock fully a tank that can handle 3ppm ammonia and the relevant nitrite produced...in 12-24hrs period.
 
I do as you are asking all the time when setting up a new tank.
I place a sponge filter or HOB filter on my main display tank's and run the new filter's for a couple three week's before introducing a few fish at a time to the new tank.
So long as one does not go crazy stocking fishes, (who does?) there is little issue.
 
In-bucket cycling is a very good method to get things started. Just add ammonia or fish food. Otherwise you can definitely use mature media or cycle alongside in another tank.
 
Is there any reason why I cant start to cycle the new external filters on existing tanks so they are ready when required?

No issues with that, it's a brilliant way to get your new bio media ready to go in no time.

Would it effect the filters already on the tanks?

No, not in a negative way.

Would the new tanks be ready for use almost immediately?

Assuming the bio media in the new filter are colonised with bacteria from your running tank, when you hook up the new filter in the new tank it will be like doing a 100% water change on the old tank. Ok, you won't have any bacteria in the new substrate but the filter will be perfectly capable of handling a low fish load. Just don't throw in all them 6 wild discus!
 
The new filter will grow bacteria to the size of the bioload in that particular tank so if hooked to an existing tank...it may not cycle much if at all... I tried this once with a sponge filter...I let it run in my big tank for weeks and then I moved it to a newly set up shrimp tank..I had literally just 5 shrimp in there...the filter could not handle it at all. I was getting low readings of ammonia and shrimp were sitting motionless.. In the end I took the shrimp out.

The best way is to simply transfer old established media to the new filter when setting it up and do plenty of water changes at the start until its fully handling the bio load.....or the bucket and ammonia method...If you are going to add the bio load slowly....as in fish by fish...then yes...But if for example you're getting discus, you'd want to get to get them all at once, from exactly the same source and put them in a tank that can handle heavy bioload...to eliminate any possibility of spikes and thus trigger unwanted outcomes and subsequent disease outbreaks. In fact, it is quite risky buying fish one by one, because you're bound to get one that will bring a disease wiping the whole tank....or cross contamination of some sort.
 
The new filter will grow bacteria to the size of the bioload in that particular tank so if hooked to an existing tank...it may not cycle much if at all... I tried this once with a sponge filter...I let it run in my big tank for weeks and then I moved it to a newly set up shrimp tank..I had literally just 5 shrimp in there...the filter could not handle it at all. I was getting low readings of ammonia and shrimp were sitting motionless.. In the end I took the shrimp out.

The best way is to simply transfer old established media to the new filter when setting it up and do plenty of water changes at the start until its fully handling the bio load.....or the bucket and ammonia method...If you are going to add the bio load slowly....as in fish by fish...then yes...But if for example you're getting discus, you'd want to get to get them all at once, from exactly the same source and put them in a tank that can handle heavy bioload...to eliminate any possibility of spikes and thus trigger unwanted outcomes and subsequent disease outbreaks. In fact, it is quite risky buying fish one by one, because you're bound to get one that will bring a disease wiping the whole tank....or cross contamination of some sort.

It's a new 600+ litre Discus tank that is on the cards, once i have rearranged the fish room.
No pockets in a shroud so once ready I intend to buy another 10 wild Discus all together & I'm looking at my options in the preparation of these.
 
Hi all,
The best way is to simply transfer old established media to the new filter when setting it up and do plenty of water changes at the start until its fully handling the bio load
This is what I do, basically you can take half the media out of the filter, and then give the new media (for both filters) a good swish around in the mulm from the existing filter.
adding ammonia from a bottle daily
We are going to differ on this one. I'm not personally a fan of ammonia addition, partially because it doesn't produce an appropriate microbial assemblage in the filter media and partially because I am never going to be reliant on a canister filter for microbial filtration.

If you can set up the tank and plant it (even if the planting just consists of some floating plants) that is an enormous advantage for microbial filtration. It is in the "RNA" linked thread but nearly all the traditional articles and posts about cycling hugely underestimate the contribution of plants, the efficiency of plant/microbe filtration systems and the <"importance of oxygen">.

Since the development of <"RNA and DNA libraries"> there has been a large amount of scientific literature which looks at nitrification in waste water etc, and even scientists like Dr Tim Hovanec have changed their ideas about the mechanisms and microbial assemblages which lead to aerobic nitrification.

cheers Darrel
 
He, he Darrel....We always disagree on this topic. Why don't you try to prove me wrong....Cycle a tank fishlessly using ammonia from a bottle, then stock that tank fully...see how it goes..The microbial activity you're talking about will come along too. It is just an NH4 containing bottle....One can think of it as a fertilizer. There's ammonia in tanks all the time...and the actual ammonia cycle period during fishless cycling is about a week.... but it takes a couple more for nitrites to start rapidly being converted....no damage done to a fishless tank whatsoever and the actual maturity of a tank, after nitrification is efficient, takes months...I am sure it develops just the right type of bacteria that would normally thrive in your tap water as long as one does not change the source of water after the tank is being cycled. You don't need science and labs for that, you need to do it over and over again with the same success and science is about trial and error. There are different type of scientists. Take Nicola Tesla and Einstein being an example of vastly different approaches.
 
I'm with Darrel on this also...if only because I've never found it necessary to add additional ammonia in order to cycle a tank.
My heavily planted dirt tanks usually cycle in a week or so.
Although, I also acknowledge there are several paths to success:)
 
I'm with Darrel on this also...if only because I've never found it necessary to add additional ammonia in order to cycle a tank.
My heavily planted dirt tanks usually cycle in a week or so.
Although, I also acknowledge there are several paths to success:)

There is quite a load of bacteria in the tapwater, in the world around us and on us.. And it doesn't need a lot of bioload to multiply. People who sport and use water bottles or have pets with drinking bowls experience this biofilm forming within days if the bottle or bowl is not cleaned before every refill. Throwing plants and wood and soil in the tank is enough to speed this process up.. And then you only need to find a little patience to get the plants throught the first transplant shock and start growing (cycling) and taking up ferts. There are tons of theories and products to find claiming to speed these processes up. But there is one thing you can't change and just have to go with what you get. That's plant quality and it's stored energy to get through this first shock. Some plants are rather fast others especialy young plants can take up to 2 weeks (and much longer) before doing something vissible and some just don't make it, no matter what you try to push down their troath. It's wait and see and once you see vissible new growth you have proof of the cycle starting and going in the right direction. Lets call that the hand of god in our tank, container, garden or plant pot what so ever. :)
 
No, I'm not a lover of bare tanks although I've learnt my lesson, Discus are hard work in a fully planted tank.

All my Discus tanks have sand or JBL Manado as a base with Twisted Hazel "Driftwood" a few pebbles & Amazon sword plants.
Their natural biotope has lot's of driftwood, no plants but Echinodorus are found in the area.
 
Hi all,
The microbial activity you're talking about will come along too. It is just an NH4 containing bottle....One can think of it as a fertilizer. There's ammonia in tanks all the time...and the actual ammonia cycle period during fishless cycling is about a week.... but it takes a couple more for nitrites to start rapidly being converted....no damage done to a fishless tank whatsoever and the actual maturity of a tank, after nitrification is efficient, takes months..
Yes, but it is back to the shades of grey argument. When you add filter material from an established system you have added a bacterial supplement that is appropriate for your water, as long as you have reasonable levels of dissolved oxygen, that initial microbial supplement will offer a flexible response to the changing nutrient supply. I don't see it as a binary switch between "non-cycled" and "cycled", I don't actually think that "cycled" is a very useful concept. Stephan Tanner explains the time scale for the development of a fully functioning ecosystem in <"Aquarium Biofiltration">.

You can cycle a filter with ammonia, and then measure the relative levels of NH3, NO2- & NO3-, add all your stock, and then rely on microbial filtration from a canister filter. It is possible, and plenty of people do it, but you are always balanced on razor edge where any sudden increase in the bioload, or loss of dissolved oxygen, is likely to lead to a positive feed-back loop where ammonia levels rise in the tank. Once you've added plants, and a substrate, you don't have a single point of failure.

Once our tank is established we are back to Liebig's law of the minimum, one resource will limit each organisms potential growth and levels of the main nutrients (in microbial terms "the substrate"), nitrogen, carbon, oxygen etc will regulate the microbial community.
And it doesn't need a lot of bioload to multiply. People who sport and use water bottles or have pets with drinking bowls experience this biofilm forming within days if the bottle or bowl is not cleaned before every refill. Throwing plants and wood and soil in the tank is enough to speed this process up.
Yes this is also a good point, the traditional view is that only a very specialized suite of bacteria perform nitrification, and that they have specific requirements, which must be fulfilled for them to function. But, we know that this isn't actually the case, partially because the ammonia oxidising bacteria that were assumed to provide this role in aquariums (they were isolated from sewage treatment) are, at most, minor players.

I can't get full-text of this paper <"Microbial Succession and Nitrogen Cycling in Cultured Biofilms as Affected by the Inorganic Nitrogen Availability">, but the abstract suggests that nitrogen deficient systems are more diverse and flexible;
Biofilms were cultured using a flow incubator either with replete inorganic nitrogen (N-rep) or without exogenous inorganic nitrogen supply (N-def). The results showed that the biomass and nitrogen and phosphorous accumulation of biofilms were limited by N deficiency; however, as expected, the N-def biofilms had significantly higher microbial diversity than that of N-rep biofilms. The microbial community of biofilms shifted in composition and abundance in response to ambient inorganic nitrogen level.
cheers Darrel
 
No, I'm not a lover of bare tanks although I've learnt my lesson, Discus are hard work in a fully planted tank.

Never considered a fully planted sump for an unplanted discus biotope? That would by my way if had room for a huge tank. :) Thinking about it a lot, but i guess it will be a dream forever.
 
Hi all,
Their natural biotope has lot's of driftwood, no plants
You can have floating plants.

I spoke with Norwegian Apistogramma keeper TomC a while ago about how common Pistia stratiotes (Nile Cabbage) was in the Peruvian Amazon basin, and he said it was pretty much ubiquitous where-ever the surface flow allows it to collect. There are some images in <"Collecting in Pebas..."> (you might like the articles section of the web-site).

This is from Heiko Bleher: <"Authentic Biotope Aquarium Lago Cuipeuá – Amazon">
The decoration is biotope-correct, as seen by me in Cuipeuá during raising water.
. Cheers Darrel
 
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Pistia stratiotes (Nile Cabbage) was in the Peruvian Amazon basin, and he said it was pretty much ubiquitous where-ever the surface flow allows it to collect.

I noticed this last week, watching some documentary filmed at the amazone and its tributaries. With every marginal shot they tried to catch an aligator on film to show potential dangers.. And every shot had more Pistia than Aligators it was everywhere.. :)

Their natural biotope has lot's of driftwood, no plants

That's a bit the tunnel vision the biotoop recreator suffers from, looking at a very small picture.. :) You can't place a 1000 litre plantless tank in the same perspective as the big picture.. The wild discus have a whole marginal jungle and probably places with abundand aquatic plants upstream in their biotope. :)
 
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