scrappy
02-23-2004, 9:11 PM
We setup a 10 gallon tank. We used about 4 gallons from our 20 gallon tank that had been cycled. We add about 2-3 cups of gravel from the other tank. We topped of the tank with a coupl egallon of spring water. We have a UGF with a Power Head... Would this be fine to add our baby mollies to? Will we need to wait for a cycle to happen or will the gravel and other tank water do the trick?
PumaWard
02-23-2004, 9:23 PM
You can add them now. The cycle is already in the making, the mollies will feed the bacteria and finish things up.
Aquarius0015
02-23-2004, 9:24 PM
The old tank water will do nothing but possibly introduce waste product into the new tank. Beneficial bacteria does not survive in the water column, but a whole host of other unwanted things do- ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, medicines, algae, disease, etc.
The gravel should help a lot. If I were you, I would take out the UGF and install a HOB but that's more a matter of personal preference. Still though, since you have a powerhead, I would go with RUGF rather than standard UGF.
A few cups of established gravel will speed up the cycling process but will not complete it. Don't forget that bacteria needs to eat, so add a few drops of household ammonia everyday until you add fish. This is called fishless cycling, but because you already have a lot of bacteria present, it shouldn't take you nearly as long as it would take someone starting from scratch.
Try doing a search on fishless cycling (and you might want to check out alternate filtration methods, too, but that's entirely your decision!).
scrappy
03-21-2004, 3:07 PM
Sorry for the dealy in the response.
We changed from the UGF to a trickle filter and did a fishless cycle using a fresh shrimp. It took about 4 weeks to cycle but we finally got there. We now use this tank to move our baby mollies and swordtails to. We have a few baby mollies that are about 4 weeks old and some swordtails that are about a week old and a few inbetween. There are about 20-25 little fish in there now.
Now we just need to determine when is a go time, based on their size to move the babys back to our 20 or 75 gallon tank. I know that if we get to a stage where we have too many fish, that the Pet store will take the fish after they are bigger. Has anyone done this. I rather see the fish find a good home then overstock and have them die anyway.