# Upsizing tank



## ngp (Feb 24, 2013)

Hi All, so i have a 4 month established cycled freshwater planted tank. It's 5.5 gallon and plants are well established and growing happily. Substrate is Amazonia and i dose with Aquavitro. CO2 is DIY. Readings are 0.0 for nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia. PH is 6. Filtration is eheim 2213. 

Question is; i like to get a larger tank around 10-20G. The 5.5G is 18" long, 10" wide, 7" high. I have 3 ember tetra and 3 armano in there (it's too small!). I'd like to take that to 6 Ember tetra and maybe another 1-2 armano. Can this be done without having to cycle again. For instance i move the fauna to a holding bucket using water drained from the tank. I keep the eheim filtering through that bucket to keep the bacteria from dying. I fully drain the tank, remove the plants (i assume i'll have some losses but that's not an issue) putting some in the holding bucket hopefully to keep the stress down on the fish, i then pull the substrate and re apply it into the new larger tank. And reverse the procedure. In an emergency the shrimp could go into another 5G planted i have 2 armano in already and i guess the fish could live in the now empty old 5G tank for a while.

What i don't want to do is wait another 2 months for a new tank to fishless cycle. I am assuming that as my tank is wide and low if i double the height and slightly increase the horizontal dimensions i could use just the same amount of substrate as it is 2" deep in parts right now. This way i don't have to introduce new Amazonia.

It's sound odd but my issue is that i can't really have a 3rd, and larger tank, as i don't have the space. I have had zero trouble setting up this tank, a little algae that cleared up when i moved the lighting higher. I do WC 50% every week.

thanks

ngp


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## Tommy72a (Jan 6, 2013)

Try to transfer much water as possible from your old tank. Your established filter, plants and substrate should provide enough bacteria for your new tank. How much plants do you have? Lot of people won't even bother cycling the tank when it's heavily planted.


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

ya won't be a problem if you keep most of the water and put the original filter over to the new tank with all the substrate 

and if your worried you could always dose stability for the first little while


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## ngp (Feb 24, 2013)

with regards to plants. Its an odd measurement but i would at prior to cutting and replatin every second week around 60% of my gross water volume is plants, assuming for instance the total volume is measured by the extents of the plant rather than the plant mass volume. It's a lot






this image is just after a 50% cutting.


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## effox (Apr 21, 2010)

Transferring water will keep the PH from dropping from the 7ish degrees of water from the tap to the low 6ish degrees that the amazonia soil will buffer to, but won't aid in transferring beneficial bacteria. You're filter and soil will do this. But transferring water when possible would aid your fish in the transfer for this reason alone.

Adding a few shrimp definitely won't create a noticeable bioload, and I doubt 3 extra tetras would either for an under utilized 2213. If you're ever worried about a mini cycle due to increasing your bio load, just add the fish slowly. When in doubt, add Stability or Cycle as monkE mentioned.

To elaborate on what Tommy said, some people don't cycle heavily planted tanks, as plants will absorb ammonia and nitrogen anyways. Any left over ammonia\nitrogen will be converted by beneficial bacteria to nitrates in excess.


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## Tommy72a (Jan 6, 2013)

Wow! Nice set up. Looks like you've done a great job with that. Maybe you can do a tank journal and share your experience with us. By the way, I been looking for a little tank for my office. If you are thinking about selling your old tank, please contact me.
Regards,
Tommy


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