DrJade
New member
Hi. I was wondering if anyone has had this happen and any thoughts and what went wrong/ what to do different next time I move a filter or filter media.
I have two homes. At home 1 I have two tanks with very stable filter cycles for many years. In the past when I set up the second tank, I purchased the same filter(fluvial 407) and put 1/2 the old cycled media from tank 1 into new filter for tank 2 setup and had an instant cycle. This worked very well. No issues.
This time I set up a tank at a different house, a 2 hour drive away with different water supply. I removed 1/2 the filter media from one of my cycled healthy tanks, put it sopping wet with filter water into zip locks an transported it on ice packs to new location. New tank was set up and running probably 6 hours later at most. I used declorinater (API tap water conditioner)and flushed new filter and new media with dechlorinated water prior to adding old cycled media.
It appears the cycle crashed as I added ammonia at 2-4 ppm to test it and the level to not reduce or convert to nitrate after 24 hours.
My only theories at this point are
1) I should have transported media totally submerged in filter water instead of just wet in bag
2)Ice was too cold and damaged bacteria
3)I waited to long to add ammonia. I did not add ammonia for 24-48 hours, as I could not find it, but I did add some fish food flakes, and I don't think bacteria would die that fast.
4) bacteria does not like new water supply. Old tank from which media came was on hard well water, new tank is on city water with water conditioner.
My concern is that I need to move my other 2 cycled tanks in near future to this location with city water and 2 hour drive away and I am now not confident the media will survive the change.
Any thoughts of experience appreciated.
Thanks!
I have two homes. At home 1 I have two tanks with very stable filter cycles for many years. In the past when I set up the second tank, I purchased the same filter(fluvial 407) and put 1/2 the old cycled media from tank 1 into new filter for tank 2 setup and had an instant cycle. This worked very well. No issues.
This time I set up a tank at a different house, a 2 hour drive away with different water supply. I removed 1/2 the filter media from one of my cycled healthy tanks, put it sopping wet with filter water into zip locks an transported it on ice packs to new location. New tank was set up and running probably 6 hours later at most. I used declorinater (API tap water conditioner)and flushed new filter and new media with dechlorinated water prior to adding old cycled media.
It appears the cycle crashed as I added ammonia at 2-4 ppm to test it and the level to not reduce or convert to nitrate after 24 hours.
My only theories at this point are
1) I should have transported media totally submerged in filter water instead of just wet in bag
2)Ice was too cold and damaged bacteria
3)I waited to long to add ammonia. I did not add ammonia for 24-48 hours, as I could not find it, but I did add some fish food flakes, and I don't think bacteria would die that fast.
4) bacteria does not like new water supply. Old tank from which media came was on hard well water, new tank is on city water with water conditioner.
My concern is that I need to move my other 2 cycled tanks in near future to this location with city water and 2 hour drive away and I am now not confident the media will survive the change.
Any thoughts of experience appreciated.
Thanks!
