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no it will contain ammonia as the soil will have ammonia to help start up the cycling processs, by using seasoned filter and cycled water will only help to speed up the cycling process.
Sound confused from the title right?
I explain future.
Currently my tank is there for 3month, was thinking to redo it and change the soil to Ada.
Due to the live stock in my tank, i'm got no extra tank to keep them if i will be redo it over.
So i was thinking that i drain out all the tank water to the pails and move my life stock there for the time been when i change the soil.
After the change of soil and replanting, I pour back the cycled tank water into the tank. filter remain.
Is my tank above still consider cycle? Can i place my life stock back to tank immediately? Anything to take note if the above method is fine?
thanks again guys
no it will contain ammonia as the soil will have ammonia to help start up the cycling processs, by using seasoned filter and cycled water will only help to speed up the cycling process.
Last edited by Crystal Red Shrimp; 4th Nov 2009 at 08:15.
never know until you measure the Ammonia level. It might speed up the process though
For me, no problem. I had been doing it at least twice. You need not cycle the tank unless you killed all the beneficial bacteria during the process of transferring. But you must retain the soil, filter and at least 50% of the water.Originally Posted by dna9179
Sound confused from the title right?
I explain future.
Currently my tank is there for 3month, was thinking to redo it and change the soil to Ada.
Due to the live stock in my tank, i'm got no extra tank to keep them if i will be redo it over.
So i was thinking that i drain out all the tank water to the pails and move my life stock there for the time been when i change the soil.
After the change of soil and replanting, I pour back the cycled tank water into the tank. filter remain.
Is my tank above still consider cycle? Can i place my life stock back to tank immediately? Anything to take note if the above method is fine?
thanks again guys
Oh sorry, did not read you correctly. You said you will need new soil, then you better do proper cycle. The soil will contain alot more beneficial bacterial then your filter and water.
oh man, then i will be putting risk for them if i do it and place them back immediately.
the old soil is actually just lapis sand, i really wanna redo the tank but the problem is the living guys inside got no where to stay.....
house it in the bucket temporary with air pump
so how long i allow the tank to cycle this time using the above method?
if you want to be proper then you need to measure the Ammonia level. if not the you have to try and error. Put some fish after 2 weeks. If you want to be save then wait for 4 weeks.
oh man, i though by using the existing water and filter i can place the fish back within few day...
if i leave like 50% of the remaining lapis sand on bottom then add the Ada soil, will it be better or still the same?
My guess, not much different
I never try it, so I would not know what going to happen and different setup may have different result. That is why I keep saying, measure the ammonia level. I does not want to measure then cycle longer. If you don't mind your fish die then try bit by bit.
Actually you can still try it, just need to do more water change (maybe daily) to reset the water quality. What fish are you keeping, hardy fish should make it even with tank that is not properly cycled.
some tetra and guppy.
But with more water change will it also reset the cycle as well? it's like the water haven't cycled and u change again and it need to cycle again? am i right or wrong??? confuse.....
The main purpose of cycling the tank is to cultivate bacteria and let it stay in you filter, substrate and maybe drift wood, rock. Not so much on water.
actually that is a good question. These beneficial bacteria need food to survive and their food is Ammonia. With the lack of Ammonia due to constant water change, would they be dead? or would they able to hibernate until food source arrive? I ask the same question for planted tank. The healthy plant will eat/absorb all the Ammonia, thus what left for the beneficial bacteria?
OK i made a decision, i decided to go with the redo of my tank and change lapis sand to Ada soil.
I need to ask some question which i'm not sure of, hope you guys can help.
1: When i remove the plant inside my tank, can i soak them in a pail with water mix with bleach? I wanna remove all algae, or snail or any dirt before i plant them back to the tank again. will the plant die if i soak them for like 2hour or so?
1.1: Do i need to rise the plant with tap water again to remove the bleach after soaking?
2: Some part of the tank is also cover with green algae spot, i will use sponge to clean them. Question is will it be better to use some bleach to clean the tank instead?
3: I got a ehiem 2211 filter with brand new media, so i would said this is new filter. To speed up the cycle process do i:
Let both the new filter and old filter to run at the same time? Or can i take out the sponge in my old filter and place them into the 2211? By the way my old filter is a small boyu internal filter.
4: As recommended by shadow, I will keep my guppy and tetra in a pail with air pump. But is air pump enough without filter? What need to take note if i'm keeping them in pail with just air pump for weeks? Like water change weekly and remove the poo from them ect. anything else?
Really thanks everyone for helping me.
I will get a pack of Ada soil to replace the lapis sand i'm using now. I guess it's not necessary to get Ada power sand. just the Ada soil is good enough for planted tank right and 1 pack of 9L is enough for a 1.5ft tank?
Last edited by dna9179; 6th Nov 2009 at 03:47.
Morning, I will be going to NA later to get he soil and bio rio for the 2211
How big is your tank and how many of what type of fish do you have in the tank? That will largely decide how much of a problem you will be running into.
The tank will no longer be fully cycled by seeded. It will go through a mini cycle but it will be a short cycle as all the bacteria are already there and just need to increase in numbers. They multiply pretty fast. If you check the ammonia daily you can make sure the fish will be ok. If you see a spike in the ammonia you can do a small water change every other day like 10%, but only if needed, otherwise water changes will prolong the cycling period. Once you have the tank set up again, leave it sitting for a few hours before adding the fish back in but no longer then one day, the fish will be fine in a bucket with an airstone for that long, just don't feed them. Also when you return them to the tank, feed lightly for a few days, makes it easier on the mini cycle.
For your plants you can soak them in bleach but you could also just use some copper based fish medicine as that will kill snails also and not harm the fish if there are some minor traces left later on. For the tank walls I would not use bleach but a scraper or a credit card or a kitchen scrub pad.
As far as the filter goes I would run both if it's possible with the cutouts in you tank cover. If not I would run the new filter with filter material from the old filter if it fits inside or run the new filter and float the filter material from the old filter. The biobugs like it dark and will quickly migrate to the new filter.
I have set up new tanks and seeding them with items from old tanks many times (I have currently 17 tanks running) and never had a problem with adding fish to a seeded tank immediately after the water had a chance to settle (about one day), but it does depend on the bioload of your fish and the size of the tank.
Plant eat/absorb ammonia ? Not too sure but know the cycle is ammonia -> NO2 (which is no good for fish) -> NO3 (converted by bacteria) -> plant. Bacteria do need plenty of O2 as well.
exactly, what happen where there is no ammonia in the first place? what happen to the bacteria? Will they starve to death? I'm not talking about stable condition where bacteria mature and able to convert ammonia to NO2
By the way there are 2 different bacteria involve
Nitrosomonas: convert Ammonia to NO2
Nitrobacter: convert NO2 to NO3
Ammonia is the first source of N for plants, when there is no ammonia, they will start taking NO2 and NO3, can't remember the order which one first.
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