First canister filter installed. How long to establish biologic filtration?

Hello all,

Despite having freshwater/brackish water fish tanks for almost 4 decades, they've generally been smaller tanks in which HOB filters were sufficient. I was lucky enough to win a Marineland C-360 at Aquamania auction last week and have just finished installing on my 55. This 55 is being converted to a mbuna cichlid tank, so getting the canister filter was most timely.

Since I need to establish the bacteria for the biologic filtration, I figure to keep the HOB filter operating along with the canister for a week. Does this seem right to you all?

Yes, are there any fish in it? How long has it been setup? If its an established tank there should be a lot of bacteria in the tank and hob. Probably take about two weeks to colonize the canister as long as there is a food source for them. If your going to put a bunch of mbuna in there I would say keep both filters. Lots of benifits to having two filters especially on a packed mbuna tank.

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Congrats on winning the filter.



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Abby,

I've found that two weeks is enough to establish the biological filtration when running the canister side by side with a HOB filter. My guess is that a week would be plenty, but why take chances.

Matt

+1 on giving the new filter 2 weeks to get established. That is the period of time I've run new stuff before removing the old and I haven't had any issues.

Thanks all. Will give it two weeks.

This tank has been in operation for years, first housing brackish water fish, Scats, then added molleys. When the Scats passed on, I did sufficient water changes over time to get the salt out, and then proceeded to populate with cherry barbs, swordtails, platties, serpae tetras, regular and black neons, corey cats and a couple of pleco's, and a beautiful 5" red tail shark. Over the passage of time, aside from the molleys continuing to populate the tank, the others are passing. It has a lake gravel substrate with an undergravel filter with a powerhead on each of the two downpipe (or up pipes). This is the tank I've added the juvenile yellow tail acei to, and they are doing well, eating up a storm (mostly vegie-based food).

I've removed one of the power heads and its tube 'cause I needed the outlet for the filter.

I know that I have to raise the pH for the mbuna, and plan to get some Texas Holey Rock for that purpose. The pH is just above 7 at this point. The tank is well planted with fake plants, and will put in additional hiding places.

After getting alot of advice from people, I think it's best for me to scale back my plans, and not to over populate the tank, especially since this is my first experience with Mbuna. The tank has a black background, so I think I'll just add some Yellow Labs and let them all grow, and then take it from there.

Thanks again for the advice.

Regards

No prob as for ph personally consistency is way more important that having it fluctuating constantly.


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Added photo of the tank as my avatar

It wasn't clear to me you'd be putting fish in with the HOB and 360. You need to lightly stock with fish to benefit from the HOB bacteria and let more colonize.

To speed things up, I do recommend "bacteria in a bottle" SafeStart (I think that's the right name) has worked for me.

Rocks, substrate, and general gunk from any existing tank will also help.

Starting a colony with a few hardy labs makes good sense. BTW, I don't worry too much about pH for my mbuna tanks. I have lace rock in the tank and some crushed coral in the substrate and that's fine

I have small pieces of seeded sponge if you want a starter culture. Of bacteria


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Thanks for the responses. The tank has been in operation for several years as freshwater tank, so the bacteria is well established in water column and substrate. I'm going to keep the HOB operating for two weeks along w/canister.

Not sure what you mean . . . very little of the bacterial colony is in the water. If the substrate's been part of a previous tank, that's great. But you still need fish in there to keep the colony going. You can't just put filters on an empty tank to produce a bacterial colony. And I sincerely apologize if you already know that. I don't know your level of fish-keeping experience. In the past we've had people who thought running a filter on an empty tank for several weeks produced a bacterial colony. in fact, that was the advice I got from the LFS when I set up my first tank!

Holly,

The tank has a number of fish in it, and has been populated for years. All I did was add the new canister filter to the tank. It will eventually house my mbuna's.

Thanks

Excellent!

There should be sufficient bacteria in the gravel to rapidly establish the canister. You can hurry it up by squeezing the sponges or media from a HOB filter into the intakes.

hollyfish2000 said:

In the past we've had people who thought running a filter on an empty tank for several weeks produced a bacterial colony. in fact, that was the advice I got from the LFS when I set up my first tank!

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That is better than the advice I got: "fill up, wait 2 hours, add fish"

Frank,

that advice is probably what a lot of newcomers think, especially if they watch TV shows like "Tanked".

xny1989 said:

Frank,

that advice is probably what a lot of newcomers think, especially if they watch TV shows like "Tanked".

Click to expand...

In my case, it was a local fish store employee.
Oh well. I get a lot of good information from places like this forum and use that to make decisions.

Why wait two hours, doesn't the water get stale? I just toss em in as I'm filling the tank.

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cichlidaddicted said:

Why wait two hours, doesn't the water get stale? I just toss em in as I'm filling the tank.

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Click to expand...

Ok toss them in then add water. Dan you are horrible


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