# Benificial Bacteria quick question?



## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

Backgrownd info: 
I've just got a 46 gallon tank starting up. Today it got the substrate (flourite black) and i filled it with water.. now i'm just waiting for the water to clear itself up. 
To avoid clogging my new canister filter already (Marineland C-220) i'm just leaving it off for now until the water settles. 
My question is, while i'm waiting for the 46 tank to clear, would it make sense to hook the canister filter up to my other tank and perhaps build up some of the benificial bacteria and then just move it back over to the 46 when it's ready to be stocked?

My other tank is a 55 gallon planted tank that is using an aquaclear filter on it. 

Any opinions or suggestions would be appreciated!


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## Fish Whisper (Apr 22, 2010)

Yes, it would help.

Another way, even faster would be to take some of the media from the aquare clear, and put it into your canister. and have the canister run on your old tank.

Once the ur ready to start the cycling on your new tank, add some stability.
That should really speed up ur cycling.

Remember to have a constant supply of ammonia to the tank, and check it on a regular baisis for NH4.no2 no3.

I find Platies to work great they all lived through my cycling without stability or media translation.


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## hgi (Jun 13, 2010)

If your other tank is a planted tank and has no fish,snails,shirps in it your filter wont have much beneficial bacteria in it since the planted tank wont have much of a bio load.... Just a thought.


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

thanks for the advice guys! 

the 55 has got plenty of fish... see my signature...


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## ngo911 (May 19, 2010)

I entirely echo what Fish Whisper said. Just remember to put the aquaclear media back after! I just set up a 55g and Stability really helped with the process.


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

so, you guys think it's better to move the media to my canister and run it on the old tank instead of just running both filters on that tank? I'm not really worried about rushing the process...really i just spent alot of money today and i want to see the filter work, i just figured that by running it on the tank alongside the Aquaclear would help a bit


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## Rastapus (Apr 21, 2010)

Monke,
If you are in no rush, just run both filters on your old aquarium and within a couple of weeks it should be established. Moving media from the aquaclear will surely help but if they are both running on the 55, it will still establish bacteria quickly from a mature aquarium.


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## tony1928 (Apr 22, 2010)

If you want to test your filter go ahead and run it in your old tank. You just want to make sure that once you've seeded your new filter that you don't go and starve that bacteria in a new tank devoid of fish and thus ammonia. I've often done the media swap into a new filter and just ran it on a new setup. Of course I had fish in there immediately to be the ammonia source.


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

I'm with Tony and Grant. Run it in your other tank unless you think there's too much flow. You can then get a huge kickstart in the new tank. I essentially will do the same thing for my new tank except that since I already have 3 filters on my 125, I'm just going to take all of the biomedia from my 2028 and stuff it into my 2078 and put new media in the 2028 and use the 2078 in my new tank.


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## budahrox (Apr 21, 2010)

Rastapus said:


> Monke,
> If you are in no rush, just run both filters on your old aquarium and within a couple of weeks it should be established. Moving media from the aquaclear will surely help but if they are both running on the 55, it will still establish bacteria quickly from a mature aquarium.





tony1928 said:


> If you want to test your filter go ahead and run it in your old tank. You just want to make sure that once you've seeded your new filter that you don't go and starve that bacteria in a new tank devoid of fish and thus ammonia. I've often done the media swap into a new filter and just ran it on a new setup. Of course I had fish in there immediately to be the ammonia source.





2wheelsx2 said:


> I'm with Tony and Grant. Run it in your other tank unless you think there's too much flow. You can then get a huge kickstart in the new tank. I essentially will do the same thing for my new tank except that since I already have 3 filters on my 125, I'm just going to take all of the biomedia from my 2028 and stuff it into my 2078 and put new media in the 2028 and use the 2078 in my new tank.


Ditto X 4
Cheers!!


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

awesome advice guys, i didn't realize that without the ammonia from the fish, the bacteria will deteriorate.. so i'll keep both filters in the 55 until i'm ready to populate the new tank 

thanks again


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