# Start cylce in new tank with old water directly from fully cycled tank?



## automatic-hydromatic (Oct 18, 2010)

Hey guys. My sister has two small 2 gallon Betta bowls with one Betta in them each (one female, and one male) and she's wanting to set up a 29 gallon or so tank and start a little community tank. She knows how to take care of tanks and all, but I was wondering something about kick-starting the cycling process. I know about how you can use filter medias and even gravel to help the cycle start, but could she do the same with water directly from a cycled tank? Like do a water change in the Betta tanks and use the old water from the Betta tanks and add it to the freshly set up tank to help the cycle? I tested the water today myself with my API kit, and all of the levels in the Betta tanks are PERFECT.


Thanks!


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## overburn (Oct 27, 2010)

As far as I know, the Nitrosomonas and Nitrospira (the main bacterias responsible for converting the ammonia intro nitrites, ant then the nitrites into nitrates) are mostly found in the aquarium gravel and the filter media. The levels of these bacteria found in the actual water is extremely low as far as I know.

As you said, if you want to kick-start the cycling process you could squeeze a cycled media from another aquarium into the new aquarium, or use some of the gravel from that aquarium.

There are some other ways.
First, you can use commercial bacteria colonies to speed up the formation of bacterias. However, you should always wait until a cycle is completed so that the bacteria grows in numbers and is suitable to process the ammonia spikes you will get when introducing fish to the aquarium.

Second, if your aquarium will be heavily planted , after setting it up, you can introduce some fish because the plants will assimilate the ammonia into their biomass. However, I don't like this method very much ,because if you immediately introduce fish , you will not have the good bacterias set up in your tank, and say, if you introduce too many ,you will surely have ammonia surplus in the tank. And if you don't have the bacterial overhead that mature tanks have , the ammonia will remain in the tank, and the fish will die. Also, when leaves fall of the plants and start decomposing, they will release all the compounds back into the water and that can cause shifts in the environment, weakening most sensitive fish. 

So , it will take a week or so for the water in the aquarium to become cloudy. Those are the nitrosomonas, the bacterias that transform the ammonia into nitrites. In a few days, those bacterias will attach themselves to the gravel and filter media. Then in about a week or so, massive numbers of nitrospiras will accumulate (those turn nitrite into nitrates). So technically, in about two weeks you can safely but slowly add some hardy fish to the aquarium. For the more sensitive fish , you whould wait about 2-3 months at least, until the aquarium has matured, even if you jump-start the cycling process.

I don't know if all of this is correct, but that's the conclusion I have reached after being in the same shoes as you and a lot of research. So if I got the facts wrong , feel free to correct me.


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## NursePlaty (Feb 5, 2010)

*It should help. I do the same thing to my new tanks. I use old water along with seeding.*


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## automatic-hydromatic (Oct 18, 2010)

sounds legit to me

yeah it does make more since that the mass majority of the bacteria would be in the filter and in the gravel and everything, and what's picked up in the water is just a trace


I've got a bunch of slate rocks in my 10 gallon that's cycled, so I might let her borrow some of those to help her out  and we'll probably put the water in there anyways; couldn't hurt

and yeah she plans on using live plants in the tank too, or at least I convinced her too, lol


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## NursePlaty (Feb 5, 2010)

*Yea, bacteria are sessile. So they are attached to walls, decs and etc. The slate rocks would be a good seeder.*


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

I've used water from other tanks and it helped immensely.


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