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I am thinking of setting up a multi tank in a 10 gallon. My plan is to add a small amount of sand from my other tank, filter pad from my other tank and a bacterial starter like cycle. If I did this could I add fish (3 multis) immediatly? The tank I am taking sand and the filter pad from is heavily stocked so it should have a lot of bacterial colonies. Thanks any suggestions, opinions or ideas are welcome.

"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man" Simpsons

Cat,

Some will say yes and others no. I set-up a 125G with EcoComplete and a seeded filter. I immediately added 10 large discus and a now unknown number of dither fish and bottom dwellers. I carefully monitored ammonia and nitrites for the first 10 days, neither registered on my tests. I also did daily 50% water changes to ensure water quality for the discus just in case.



__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

The more you can add from the other tank the better. If you know well in advance what you want to do you can pre-seed the materials then add them when you set-up the new tank. I did that with my new ten, started stuffing things into the 25 then moved them all in when it was set-up and added the fish at the same time and some cycle, the tank didn't go through a visible cycling process at all and was done in 5 days.


"If you're afraid you'll make a mistake, you won't make anything."
-Family Circus

Thanks for the advise! I will be using the same filter so it will be easy to seed I just transfer the filter pad from one tank to the other.

"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man" Simpsons

problem no good now, but in the future i like to run a bio wheel on my tanks and just transfer that over. infact, i run a bio wheel on all my tanks.


chris

Its totally possible to have an instant cycled tank when you have others, swopping over filter media, using mature tank water, mature substrate all works a treat, especially if you keep the gravel in your other tanks reasonably clean. Ive created instant tanks for those impulse purchases and unexpected fry ,and the fish and plants have been able to go straight in, and the water never shows any ammonia or nitrite. Its not so much seeding a new tank as ripping a fully functional one in half to make another, and it works just about every time.

Its all made simpler by the fact that i keep several filters of the same type, I have multiples of eheim 2224/s , 2222's, a few larger models and about 6 eheim aquaballs, and since the flow rates are the same you can swop the media over and have it work instantly.

Thanks to all who posted!

I cant run bio wheels because they are way too noisy for where I want to put this tank.

"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man" Simpsons

I use biomax in my aqua-clear 50 HOB filter, when I seeded the 10 gallon I moved the biomax from the 25 filter to the new tank, just placed it in the tank under the uptake tube, it's an instant biological filter. I always have them in my filters, and at my LFS they sell them separately for 25 cents each to be added to the really tiny Azoo filters sold with betta tanks.

"If you're afraid you'll make a mistake, you won't make anything."
-Family Circus

i have 3 bio wheels on my tanks which are on the side of me and right behind me and the only noise i hear is from my old worn out air pump and my air bubbles popping.


chris