Seeding tanks

I joined this site on Feb 4 of this year.. having been out of the hobby for over 20 years.. and ten years of phasing out my involvement... so.. really 30 years..
After joining on the 4th of Feb, I managed to hook up with a 35g the very next day that had been running for a half dozen years. With like 60-80 guppies in it!.. Well, I got my "deal".. siphoned off most of the water for transporting that tank for my first setup in a long time. Filled it up.. put some plants I bought in it and had an instant success... You'd swear the water is gin not H2O...<grin> Well then I picked up a 29Bow... and a 50g tall... I've done everything according to the book.. My 29B.. I filled via water changes from the established tank... progressing slowly.. the 50 I went with a soil/sand substrate about 2 weeks later.. and after just two weeks caught up with the 29b as far as clarity, plant growth and overall fish contentment.. Next up I sold off the 50 with the soil/sand set up and in a hurry set up a 55 with just a SPFS substrate... and it's limping along.. very slowly.. Seeded with 30 gal from the 50, plants galore and a saturated filter "glove" to get the bios runnings... Someone on here stated that if ya want to seed a tank, grab some gravel/soil from an established cycled tank and utilize that for the new set-up. I'm seeing that as some of the best advice I've received on here as a newbie..

When I "seed" a new tank ( I have 48 running ) I take a air powered filter ( I keep several running in established tanks ) And place it in the new tank. I also take used filter media from a running filter and place it in the tank , shaking it , for a week or so. I can have it up and running with fish in about 1.5 to 2 weeks .
Ray

Seeding a tank can be a strange beast. I tried it once (with two power filters) and it seemed to fail but I believe this was due to the fact that the water was setup differently in each tank and the bacteria just had a massive die off.
The next time I tried seeding was between two canister filters. I took the media from my planted tank which is well established and put one basket in my canister for the Cichlid tank. It only took a few day to see ammonia start dropping and within 10 days the nitrite dropped.

I am trying something new for my sponge filters tanks that I started cycling. I had heard some decent reviews about Stability. Just another seachem product but it was suppose to speed up the cycle process and establish bacteria in about a week. So I will put this to the test in a few tanks I have to cycle yet with nothing but a sponge filter in them. By next Friday I should know haha.

I am not a fan of Chemicals . For any reason , in my tanks . Just sayin'

Well normally I would not be either but I wanted to give this a try. From the reading I have done it is only used to start the bio-filter off much the way seeding would work. After one week of dosing you stop and "supposedly" the seeded bacteria will take over from there. Does it work... no idea but it is worth a try. Chemicals have a bad stigma for bacterial products because there have been countless false claims made which I completely understand but I figured since it is Seachem I would give it a go.

I've always had luck seeding new tanks with used filter media.

I'm with ya on the filter media.. just makes sense.. But someone else at a LFS stated that the real seed generator would be the gravel from an established tank.. grab a bunch and put it in pantyhose if your worried about the difference in color between tanks..

Chuy wrote:

I've always had luck seeding new tanks with used filter media.

Yeah I would think that established gravel would have a decent amount of bacteria in it. It could only help to me at least and would be something worth doing every time. Like you said put it in a mesh holder of some kind and once your tank is up and running you could always remove it and put it back in the old tank.

I just 'seeded' a tank that I had to break down and bleach due to some bettas coming down with parasites. After I rinsed everything, I filled tank with 3" water and let it sit for 2 days with the air filters running. Then I filled the rest by draining down my planted tank. (due for a water change anyways), added a bunch of pumic rock from my planted tank as well. Soaked the air filter media in some bacteria startzyme.

Waited a day. Threw a molly my son no longer wanted in there. It lived! Checked water today (6 days after restart). Ammonia's dropping, Nitrite is showing, Nitrate is showing as well. But all are still within safe zone. (Makes sense with just a single fish in there). Added two bettas today (divided tank) - I'll check levels again on Monday. But it's looking good so far.

It's hard when you're running different setups. Couldn't use my Mbuna water to start a lower pH tank - though I have used it to quick cycle/start my Panfish tank. I've ALWAYS filled new tanks half-way with 'old tank' water, and have yet to have cycling issues... (Knock on wood)

I take media from other tanks and use it or rinse it in the tank and do and add 50% water from my other tanks water and then i only wait like a day and its fine. Also if i have any fake plants, ornaments, or gravel that i can rinse in the water i do that and it really helps speed up the process. I recently got a new 55 gallon and i didn't even go threw the cycling process with it using all these methods it was great i could put fish in it right away.

For my 45 long i just used media and feeder fish and it cycled in a week and a half.

Well.. this 55 (spfs), plenty of plants, now 20 fish totaling about 36 inches of fish... My Ph is at 7.0, Nitrite 0, ammonia < 1 ppm. But it is still cloudy after about 6 days! Too impatient?

oh.. just added 10 fish today .. thinking there might not be enough ammonia being created by too few fish.. Off my rocker?

How it works is there is ammonia spike the ammonia starts going back to 0 then the nitrites and nitrates spike then that has to go back down to 0 then your tank is filtered, so maybe you are ending you ammonia spike and by adding more fish so suddenly that might make the ammonia spike again, Its good to add fish slowly to a tank cycled"seeded" or not.

Unless these fish are feeder fish taht your not worried about loosing i would take them out of that tank for a few more days till you know if you are going to get a nitrite/nitrate spike.

Here is a good USAfishbox article about cycling a tank :)

https://usafishbox.forumotion.com/t1729-article-on-cycling-by-a-wonderful-very-experianced-aquarist

Keelo.. I've read that article.. and understand the cycling process pretty well.. more research on my part indicates the tank has been running for about 13 days. What I was worrying about was that I may have had too few fish in the tank to trigger the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate cycle. It's heavily planted, pool filter sand substrate and was concerned I hadn't "pulled the trigger".. Hence the addtion of 10 - $1.00 fish... The 5 inch angel has been in the tank for over a week and seems very comfortable... as are all the tetra's. I was just expecting the tank to appear a bit clearer by this time... again that's why I asked if I was just being too impatient.. But thanks for the prompt on the cycling article.. I probably didn't state the "case" clearly enough...

Yeah I almost always get a small ammonia spike when I add a few fish even to an established tank. The bacteria only grow to fit the needs of the tank so by adding more fish you increased the demand on them. They happily grow more (given the space) but it takes a few days. These mini cycles are pretty much unnoticed and you will likely never see a Nitrite spike because it is so fast(less then a day) and small BUT that only applies to well established tanks.
If your tank was still cycling and had yet to finish (0 ammonia, 0 Nitrite, some Nitrate) you might have prolonged the cycle a little more.
I would monitor the ammonia levels and if the start to climb quickly then remove some fish from the tank. If it only spikes a little and once again starts to drop then they should be fine. I know some fish get very touchy so I always use Prime while cycling my tanks. Even when the ammonia levels reach higher concentrations the fish show no ill effects at one cap a day.

One cap a DAY?... I used about 25 gal of water from a cycled tank i sold to start filling the 55 topped it off with tap and added some prime on day one.. are you saying add a cap a day? Bill

williemcd wrote:

Keelo.. I've read that article.. and understand the cycling process pretty well.. more research on my part indicates the tank has been running for about 13 days. What I was worrying about was that I may have had too few fish in the tank to trigger the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate cycle. It's heavily planted, pool filter sand substrate and was concerned I hadn't "pulled the trigger".. Hence the addtion of 10 - $1.00 fish... The 5 inch angel has been in the tank for over a week and seems very comfortable... as are all the tetra's. I was just expecting the tank to appear a bit clearer by this time... again that's why I asked if I was just being too impatient.. But thanks for the prompt on the cycling article.. I probably didn't state the "case" clearly enough...

I have read that in some cases the ammonia levels have to reach a slightly higher concentration in order to trigger the bloom of bacteria. I don't know if this is always true or not but it seems that depending on the size of the tank is didn't take many fish to get those levels up. I had put 5 tetras in a 20gal tank and within one week the ammonia levels already had hit a 5ppm level as the filter cycled.

williemcd wrote:

One cap a DAY?... I used about 25 gal of water from a cycled tank i sold to start filling the 55 topped it off with tap and added some prime on day one.. are you saying add a cap a day? Bill

From what I understand the Prime only locks ammonia for roughly 48 hours. It is with this in mind I add one cap(one cap is good to for 50 gallons.) It also seems to keep the ammonia available for bio filtration unlike some other products that completely lock/remove/convert ammonia.

Check this FAQ link out for Prime LINK***

As I have said before , Natural cycling is what I do. I use feeder fish to do this . I NEVER use chemicals in my tanks . I have right now , running , 47 tanks , All cycled using feeders and used filters . Never had a problem .
As far as still cloudy after 13+ days , I would begin to think you may have a Bacteria Bloom in progress.
Just my 2 cents ,,, Ray

You're prolonging the cycle by removing ammonia chemically. The 'bloom' is bacteria that haven't attached to anything yet. I would approach it in the following way:

1. add volcanic basalt rock in order to give free-floating bacteria somewhere to anchor.

2. After a day or two, run a UV sterilizer in tank for 48hours. This will remove excess free floating bacteria.

3. Remove UV sterilizer. If the bacteria have colonized the basalt, you won't have another bloom.

Conversly, you can also do 25% daily water changes for a week to slightly reduce NH4 levels as well as free floating bacterial populations until the basalt is colonized.

As far as I know Prime does not remove ammonia as we talked about before. It locks with chloramine breaking the bond and leaving ammonia. It then converts ammonia NH3 to NH4 temporarily (48 hours) but leaves it available for the bio-filter to catch up.

The bloom is natural and will go away within a few days and in the mean time is really not hurting anything but looks. The only threat I know it can pose to fish is oxygen depletion. Most of the time at least when starting a tank the bloom is a good thing and shows you well on the way to a fully cycled system. If it happens after the full cycle it may mean there is too much rotting food, waste in the gravel releasing ammonia and other nutrients.

Good call on the basalt rock! If it fits into the look your going for the rocks will provide a great in tank filter. Always nice to see a natural system in motion.

Strikingthematch , I'm sorry to disagree with you . But , in the last 47 years of tank keeping , and all the tanks I've cycled , I have never had a tank get cloudy during the cycle . As a matter of fact , I've only had one 3 tanks get cloudy . two were algae blooms in tanks by the window . And the other was a bacteria bloom , and after 4 days of 30% water changes , it went away.
I've only used a chemical once , and that was to try to clear up a disease . Lost half the fish in that tank anyway.
Ray