Bacteria and Cycling

[Savant]

Question, when cycling a tank, are we trying to encourage the presence of beneficial bacteria in the water or the media in our filter, or our substrate or everything?

Im re-doing an old tank and the process involves:

1) slowly scooping the used gravel out to drain off for storage);
2) leaving the filters (loaded with biohome and other bio media) constantly running;
3) draining the water to a much lower level and eventually doing a number of Water Changes;
4) cleaning the wool/sponge components of the filter and lightly rinsing the bio media components with running tap water.
5) Replacing gravel with lapis sand, replacing most (if not all) of the water, filter stop running for a few hours
6) Running the filters again.

I figured that the filter media will populate with all the beneficial bacteria, and that this will repopulate those in the water/sand? But the WC from the tap will kill these bacteria off (as we have chlorine in our water?)

[vstudio]

Question, when cycling a tank, are we trying to encourage the presence of beneficial bacteria in the water or the media in our filter, or our substrate or everything?

Im re-doing an old tank and the process involves:

1) slowly scooping the used gravel out to drain off for storage);
2) leaving the filters (loaded with biohome and other bio media) constantly running;
3) draining the water to a much lower level and eventually doing a number of Water Changes;
4) cleaning the wool/sponge components of the filter and lightly rinsing the bio media components with running tap water.
5) Replacing gravel with lapis sand, replacing most (if not all) of the water, filter stop running for a few hours
6) Running the filters again.

I figured that the filter media will populate with all the beneficial bacteria, and that this will repopulate those in the water/sand? But the WC from the tap will kill these bacteria off (as we have chlorine in our water?)

4) Rinse the wool/sponge components lightly with aged water and best not to clean the bio media components with running tap (chloroine) water. You will be destroying BBs that way.

To prevent the tap water from killing the BBs in your tank during your overhaul of your tank, you might wanna consider getting a de-chlorinator solution from your LFS?

[Savant]

Ok, alternative solution is to dun clean the filter when I put in the new sand, then the BBs from the filter will go live in the new sand?

I will wash the filter a few weeks after?

[torque6]

Actually, if you are going into a major rescape. Just migrate your bio media to your new tank and cycle as same for 4-6 weeks, with plants, having old media such as filter pad/ceramic rings/biohome will hasten your cycling process.

[Quixotic]

The more the surface amount of your media, the more these bacteria will colonise. So these bacteria will colonise your filter material a lot more comparing with your substrate, as their surface amount is a lot larger. The water that flows through your filter brings oxygen and ammonia/nitrate which are food required to sustain the bacteria.

The bacteria in your substrate will not be able to sustain the bioload in the long run, although it helps. Therefore, the key point is that whatever you do, always wash your filter with de-chlorinated, aged or used aquarium water.

[Savant]

Ok. So I will have to drain out two pails of water, one for washing the filter, and another for filling it up.

I went on ahead to change the sand, water level is about 50 percent now (all old water) and filters running. One common sucker producing all the bioload, will top up a pail daily or once every 2 days (the little bit of chlorine in 2 pails will not destroy my bb?)

I will go get a chlorine removing solution to add to my water in the pails over the weekend?

[Quixotic]

Hmm... don't quite understand. Why is there a need to top up with a pail of water every 2 days? Can't top up after you have gotten the de-chlorinator?

Topping up with the pail of water should be okay, as your bioload is currently low, but you are still going to kill some beneficial bacteria. Not really a major issue if you do so, just probably cycle the tank slightly longer (around a week?) than your original plans.

[Savant]

Ok. The theory is that a little bit of chlorinated water will not harm them so much as opposed to a full topping up. So top up bit by bit :P

Plan is to leave the tank alone for a while (at least 1-2 weeks) until I can find a home for the common Pleco and the SAE inside, may load with rummynoses + cardinals + sakura shrimps but not sure if this is wise for a L46 tank...

[Quixotic]

Shouldn't be a problem, but the key is not to add too many fishes as one go. Split up in batches to probably around a dozen fishes per week, maximum.

This is because the amount of beneficial bacteria (BB) is dependent on the waste produced by your fish. As you add more fishes, more waste will be generated.

Having a reasonable amount will enable more BB to colonise because of the availability of more food for the BB (waste from the fishes). Sudden overloading of too many fishes will cause ammonia spikes (which is lethal to the fauna) because the current amount of BB has not yet colonised enough to cope with the increased number of fishes.