# Cycle



## romsan (Sep 6, 2010)

I did set up 50gal new fresh water tank.
I added some water 2 weeks ago. Planted a little bit of plants last week.

I have another small 10 gal tank which has 4 neons, 1 betta, 1 plecco and bunch of red cherry shrimps.

My cherry shrimp population was slowly declining, thanks to betta and pleco...

Yesterday I saw that couple of pregnant cherry shrimps and decided to move all the fish to the new 50gal tank.

So today i did the move. I added about 20l of water from my other aquarium to speed up the cycle...

Did I introduced the fish too yearly to my new tank??

I am going to do a test tomorrow to see the levels of ammonia and nitrates.


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

Unless you were actively cycling your 50 gallon tank, it is unlikely to be safe for adding fish yet.

I assume by "a little bit of plants" that your 50 gallon aquarium is also not heavily planted.

Unfortunately, adding 20 litres of water from your 37 L aquarium is unlikely to cycle your new aquarium. This is due to the fact that very few bacteria live in the water column. 

I would take some filter media from the filter on your 37L aquarium and put it into the filter in the new aquarium; that way, the filter will be seeded.

I would advise you to keep a careful monitor on the ammonia and nitrite levels as well, and to do water changes as necessary (perhaps daily).


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## 50seven (Feb 14, 2010)

Darkblade48 said:


> I would advise you to keep a careful monitor on the ammonia and nitrite levels as well, and to do water changes as necessary (perhaps daily).


+1

Most fish can handle a very tiny bit of ammonia, but do your WC's just to be safe, and test ammonia daily. My Tetras survived about a week in their tank until it cycled, and I was getting approx. .25 ammonia consistently until it cycled, but I did 25-50% WC's every couple days.


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## romsan (Sep 6, 2010)

Thank you guys.
I know I kind of rushed the moving of the fish. Should of waited for the tank to do complete cycle....

I'll get the test kit from the big al.

Thank you again.


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

That is a very small bioload for a tank of that size, so you should be ok. What Darkblade said about adding filter media is good advice. In an ideal world, fishless cycling is the best route, but I for one rarely have that opportunity. I usually end up coming home from a Society meeting with a bag of bargain fish, and need to quickly put together a tank for them, often without a cycled filter. I have yet to lose a fish doing this, but it does require a little more diligence and more work.


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## dl88dl (Mar 8, 2010)

In the future if you plan on setting up more tanks then you can do it this way since you already have an established 10gal and the 50gal running for 2 weeks with some plants then what you should have done before you moved the fishy over to the 50 gal was to take the old media from the 10gal and wash and squeeze that media in the 50gal tank and in 1 to 2 hours the 50gal will be crystal clear and the filter for the 50 gal will be seeded along with all you rocks, driftwood, gravel, glass etc will also be seeded and then you can safely move those fishy but like Bill says since your live stocks are very low for the 50gal then it should be fine. I always run extra AC500 filters with extra sponge in a heavy stocked tank and this sponge I use to start new tanks.


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## romsan (Sep 6, 2010)

I put this morning old filter into new 50gal filter... I'll get some test from big al to monitor ammonia and nitrates levels.

Hopefully the fish would be ok, I didn't wanted to rush with new aquarium and was planning to run it for at least a month before putting fish in.... 

Thank you for all the suggestions.


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## romsan (Sep 6, 2010)

Took the water to the Big Al and they did a test, and everything is fine.


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

In the future, you may want to ask the people at Big Al's to give you actual numbers, rather than just a qualitative "it is fine" description.

If you encounter problems in the future, it would help to have the actual numbers.


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