Boston Aquarium Society Message Board

I'm in the process of starting my 125. There is a scratch-built sump that has been running for a few days now. What I want to do is transfer my Tanganyikans from their current 38 gal. to the 125. There is one frontosa, about 4", 2 lelupu, about 4" and a 2" calvus. How concerned should I be about cycling the tank? That's not a lot of fish for that much water. Would moving my HOB Aquaclears to the 125 for a few days be sufficient bio-filter jump start?
I would like to add a trio of angelucus soon, but the additional fronts and calvus will wait awhile. My www site has a few pics now. I'll be updating and additional pics will be up soon.

-- Dave

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There are 10 kinds of people - Those who understand binary
And those who don't

I'm guessing that the sump has a trickle filter ?

Would it be feasible to pull one (or more) of the dirty sponges from the aquaclears, cut them into small pieces (maybe 1/2" thick slices) and put them in with the trickle media ?

That should jump-start the biomedia.

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Rich
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Its new, its improved (its still a work-in-progress)
its http://redpaulhus.com !

I was planning on just squeezing the sponges out on the bio balls. Then I was going to hang the whole filter on the back of the tank for a while. Since I'm moving the fish, the filters won't be needed on their old tank.

-- Dave

_________________
There are 10 kinds of people - Those who understand binary
And those who don't

oh cool.
In that case I'd run the HOB filters for at least a month or two - plenty of time to get the good bacteria down to the trickle filter.

_________________
Rich
-- ---------------------------------------
Its new, its improved (its still a work-in-progress)
its http://redpaulhus.com !

Take the sponges from your Aquaclear's and just drop them into your overflow. I've done this many times and it works great. That way you don't have to look at those ugly HOB's with a nice 125g and sump Thje sponges will float on the top of the water and get good airation wich speeds up the development of bacteria. As the water falls from the overflow to your sump, it takes that bacteria with it and deposits it on the bio balls. Like I said, it's worked for me in the past.

Also. With that bio load "I" wouldn't be too worried. If you can I would add all the water from your 38 to the 125. Drop the sponges in the overflow and add the fish. Of course keep an eye on the ammonia and nitrites, but that is not that much of a bio load for that size of a tank.

Also, feed lightly for about the first week.

That's a great tip - I will take the sponges out of the HOB I'm still running and put them in my overflows. The fish have been in for about 3 and a half weeks. They've been joined by four more small frontosa and a trio of small pictus angelicus. I'm looking for a couple of calvus. That will probably complete the fishlist for this tank.
I've still got a bunch of finishing to do. I'm hoping that a glass top will help to retain heat through the winter - my cellar gets quite cool. I'm planning to run a water line to beside the sump. Will a charcoal filter remove chlorine? These guys are going to need a lot of bucket lugging!
I hope to be putting up some updated pictures on my website soon.
Thanks for everyone's help and suggestions!

-- Dave

_________________
There are 10 kinds of people - Those who understand binary
And those who don't

Charcoal will NOT remove chlorine.
If your gunna be running a water line down there, set up an automatic water change system with a continious flow of fresh water. Regulate the flow so that you'r adding about 5 to 10 gallons of fresh water a day. This will work out to about 35 to 70 gallons a week.

Since your doing such a small amount on a daily basis, the chlorine ammount will be neglagable (sp?)

Another bonus, No more bucket lugging