The Puffer Forum

Can I take a handfull of rocks out of my fiance's freshwater Oscar tank and put them in my slightly brackish puffer tank and expect the bacteria to live in that to help my biowheels get back to the way they were before the algae killer destroyed them??

unless the rocks are very pourous they won't help that much if at all.

What's the SG on your Fiancé's tank? If it is above 1.002 it may kill the bacteria on the rocks.

Well his fish are completely freshwater and mine are slightly brackish. But no need to worry about that anymore, We just got some cycleing formula. Thank you though.

What exactly is this "cycling product".. Most contain nothing but dead bacteria (even if it claims to be live) & will actually add to the bioload, taxing the bacteria further.

Rocks hold bacteria in all the crevices and nitches they have, that is the idea behind ceramic biomedia and bioballs. The fastest way i have ever cycled a tank was to rinse some gravel from the bottom of the tank and add it to my filter.

Dadof4 wrote:Rocks hold bacteria in all the crevices and nitches they have, that is the idea behind ceramic biomedia and bioballs. The fastest way i have ever cycled a tank was to rinse some gravel from the bottom of the tank and add it to my filter.

+1 I wish I had done that!

Most gravel is semi ~ very porus for that reason. A "hand full of rocks" is a tough description to go by. I have some polished rocks from the dollar store and they look nice but as a useful bio bed.. no good. Regular stone is a step up .. lava rock, pummice .. and ex-live rock is better. As long as it is not polished it will help to an extent

Well Pufferpunk and Dadof4 already know what I was using to cycle our tanks. I told my fiance' we needed to get Dr. Tim's and he's like, "you know what, I really don't even care anymore." He is so frustrated about losing his biowheel. He get's like this all the time lol. I think he's gonna pick some up anyways today.

My real question was if I took some rocks out of a freshwater tank that is completely cycled and put them in my slightly brackish tank would that work? Or would my tank kill the bacteria from the fresh water tank??

How "slightly" are we talking? Do you know the SG?

Around .005 or 6

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=20631&p=217966&hili ... ia#p217966

This explains the transition from FW to Marine and the in between. From this POV (point of view) the bacteria already existing in the rock should help the tank cycle in BW conditions

It certainly won't hurt, but it won't solve the problem completely either

Best way to do it is to take the gravel, put it into a clean media bag (or pantyhose sock) and put it inside your filter, so the water is continuously washing over it, allowing plenty of oxygen and water flow to reach the bacteria.

I "cycle" all my tanks with gravel, plants and filter media from existing tanks, much quicker, easier and cheaper than any other way out there

A small amount of bacteria will only seed the tank, not cycle it.

In addition to a product that works though, its a good backup plan.

Generally when I do this, I'm using handfuls of live plants, driftwood and filter media.. very little gravel.