# New Tank Start up-- Seed Filter



## citadel (Nov 9, 2009)

Does it make sense to try and seed a new filter with material from another established filter?
If so, where can you get this material if you only have 1 tank?


----------



## houseofcards (Feb 16, 2005)

I've always considered that one of the most important things you could do at startup. You could probably go to a LFS and ask them for some mulm from the filter or tank bottom.


----------



## Seattle_Aquarist (Mar 7, 2008)

Hi citadel,

I agree with houseofcards, it certainly shortens the "Nitrogen Cycle" time for me.


----------



## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

If this is the first tank you are setting up then you can buy the correct species of nitrifying bacteria. You are looking for _Nitrospiros spp_. 
Tetra Safe Start and Dr. Tim's One and Only are the only two products that I know of with the correct species for fresh water.

You can grow the bacteria yourself, with no seed media:
Fishless cycle:
Set up and run the new tank and add ammonia to feed the new bacteria. (Ammonia is sold in hardware stores and elsewhere. No perfumes or surfactants. Non-sudsing, pure ammonia)
Add enough ammonia so the test reads 5 ppm. Test daily, and add ammonia as needed. In a few days start testing for nitrite. When nitrite shows up allow the ammonia to drop to 3 ppm, and add just enough daily to keep it at 3 ppm. 
If the nitrite approaches 5 ppm, do a water change. Nitrite at 5 ppm is too high, and inhibits the bacteria. 
When the bacteria can reduce the ammonia and nitrite to 0 ppm overnight and the nitrate is climbing the cycle is done. This generally takes about 3 weeks if you start with no source of the bacteria. If you can jump start it with some cycled media it will go faster. 
You can keep feeding ammonia until you are ready to add fish. When you are ready, do a really big water change to drop the nitrate to almost 0 ppm, and add the fish.

If you have one other tank, fully cycled, then you can share media with its bacteria to jump start the new tank. I have taken as much as 25% of the media from an established tank and not had problems with it. 
Variations include:
taking more media, and some fish from the established tank.

Split the original tank: Half the fish plus the cycled filter media and lots of plants go to the new tank. The other half of the fish get new filter media, but there is enough bacteria on the substrate and decorations and live plants in the established tank to take care of them.

Planting heavily. Plants are biological filters too. You can start a new tank with no nitrifying bacteria as long as the plants are thriving, and you do not stock too heavily. There will be some nitrifying bacteria on the plant leaves, stems and roots, and the plants themselves remove ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.


----------



## aquatic_clay (Aug 17, 2009)

Something that helped me do that was to take the sponge from the new filter and use it to scrape some of the brown mulm that builds up in an old filter to seed it.


----------



## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

Nitrifying bacteria live on the surfaces of the tank and the filter media, in a complex with many other microorganisms. The best way to share them is to move some of the media from the cycled filter to the new set up. Other very good ways are to share some substrate that comes from near the surface where there is the most oxygen for the bacteria, and to share decorations with lots of surface area. Driftwood and lava rock are good, smooth, rounded rocks have less surface area, but will have some microorganisms growing on it. 

Poorest sources of the beneficial bacteria are water and waste mulm from a cycled tank. This does not mean there are zero bacteria in these things, just very little.


----------



## Franzi (Dec 7, 2009)

Just make sure that if you use wood/rocks/mulm/etc from another tank, that it's disease/parasite free...otherwise I think you run the chance of transferring bad stuff along with the good stuff.


----------



## OrangeCones (Aug 15, 2009)

My first aquarium (many many years ago) was started with the help of a great little mom/pop fish shop. If you bought a filter (or filter media) from them, they'd run it in one of the display tanks of cichlids for a week or two. Then you came back, picked out a couple of fish and take the filter media home. They'd even bag it in a fish bag with water, just as if it was a fish. 

A great start into the hobby!


----------

