"Reel McKoi" wrote in message
...

"Tynk" wrote in message
...
On Apr 8, 10:35�pm, Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:52:19 +0000, Gail Futoran wrote:
The 55G has been set up for about a month.
Since I moved plants, driftwood, and decor
from the 20G, the 55G is already cycled.
I.e., ammonia is zero, nitrites are zero, nitrates
are present but low.

Unless you've been adding ammonia, or there are fish already in the
tank,
I don't see how it could be considered cycled. �More likely the
bacteria
that were present on the plants/driftwood/decor have died off from
lack of
nourishment.

If you did have fish in the tank, ignore my concerns. �If not,
swap in
some filter material from the 20G and feed a teaspoon or so a day
of
ammonia for a week. �Then move one or two fish over and see how
the tank
chemistry goes.

I too was wondering about the tank running with live bacteria that
was
moved into the tank, but nothing to feed it for a month.

When I read his post I assumed he cycled it with fish of some kind.
???
How long exactly does the bacteria live without a food source?

I've had LavaRock dry out in the 720g tank filter spring back to
life in less than a week. I believe it doesn't necessarily "die" but
goes dormant until wet and in the presence of ammonia or nitrites.

brevity snips

I would also bump up the water changes on the 20 while those remaing
fish wait for the 55 to cycle (if no ammonia source was available
for
the month wait).

This is exactly what I would do. By the time I moved them the water
parameter would be about the same. But I never concerned myself with
Nitrates.
--

RM....
~~~~ }((((* ~~~ }{{{{(ö

Obviously I expressed myself poorly in
some respects in my original post. My new
55G tank has been "running" - in that it has
had gravel, water, water movement (via a
power filter & a powerhead), decor and some
quantity of plants taken from active tanks - for
a month, but until I got close to thinking about
starting to add fish, I didn't even bother testing
the water.

The plants were doing fine with root tabs &
Flourish Excel, so I saw no need to do testing
until about __a week ago__. At that point
nitrates were present, ammonia & nitrites
were absent. The very definition of a cycled
tank. Thus it has been each day that I have
tested.

My only concern and the only reason I
posted here was the level of nitrates in my
source tank vs the level of nitrates in my
target tank. I've made my decision about that
so I no longer look for a response on that
question.

I hope that clarify matters.

Again, thanks for the responses.

Gail [----female, not male]