breakaway Posted January 13, 2010 Report Share Posted January 13, 2010 Hi, I've had a small tank set up for a while now, and appears to be fully cycled (or so my test kits tell me). I've also set up a 200ltr tank (3 days ago) with a fluval canister filter. I've moved half the ceramic noodles from the small tank (which wasn't very much mind you - it was about enough to fill half of one of the baskets in the filter (there are three total - 2 x noodles, 1 x carbon, so the 25% of the ceramic noodles in there have good bacteria on them). I plan to move all the community fish out of the small tank and then get some dwarf freshwater puffers (they don't play nice with other fish) for the smaller tank - and I'm just wondering how lowering the good bacteria by 50% (since I took out half the 'live' ceramic noodles) will affect the water chemistry - more ammonia etc? Since puffers are very sensitve to water parameters and as per wikipieda do not take well to even the slightest amount of ammonia etc. I'm very keen/exicited/can't wait! to buy them, but at the same time I also don't want to hurt them in any way. Also, can someone also post now that I have some live bacteria in the filter for the new tank, how long before they become established and ammonia levels aren't an issue anymore? TIA! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Floater Posted January 13, 2010 Report Share Posted January 13, 2010 How many fish were in the small tank? How many puffers you going to add? At a guess I wouldn't worry if I was removing 10 fish and adding 5. In order for the bacteria in the new filter to become established it needs a source of ammonia aka fish waste. I read somewhere that the bacteria that handle the ammonia conversion to nitrites take up to 36 hours to double the population, given that there is enough ammonia to support them. So if you were moving the fish you had in the small tank to the 200L there probably wouldn't be much of an issue given the larger water volume if you did it slowly, like half today half in a weeks time. **Caution** I'm relatively new to fish keeping compared to others here so I'd wait and see what they have to say Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
breakaway Posted January 13, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2010 In the small tank are 10 x neon tetra, 3 x 3 week old platy fry, 3 x adult Platy (M/F/F). I would be putting in 2-3 puffers (It's a well planted tank with lots of space for the puffer fish if they decide to lay claim to territory). I've read that they are fussy and incrediby messy eaters, so might be some extra bio load on the bacteria because of that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryanjury Posted January 13, 2010 Report Share Posted January 13, 2010 I think adding the puffers into the small tank would be ok (depending on how many puffers you were adding and how big the tank is) it has been cycled so should be ok. Usual story though feed them very lightly for a few weeks just to allow things to settle. Also bear in mind that the bacteria that cycles a tank only lives where there is ammonia to break down (ie where it has food) so if you transferred media to a filter on an empty tank it will die off.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
breakaway Posted January 13, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2010 The tank which I trasnferred the media to isn't empty, it has 3 of the adult platys in it, and a 5 columbian tetras too - should be enough waste ya reckon? And the smaller tank is 38L big. I understand most of the bacteria live in the filter media and also in the substrate, so loss of the media shouldn't that big a deal. Am I correct in assuming this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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