How long will a new filter take to mature ? (fully populated tank, post-disaster)

Hello,

We have a 220 litre cichlid tank that has been running happily for
several months now (see http://fish.alansilver.co.uk/Mark3/). It was
running an Eheim Ecco 2235 filter, but I wasn't happy with it. I had a
lot of trouble every time it needed cleaning (which was far more
regularly than I had expected). I was very unimpressed by the poor
design of this filter and had a lot of trouble restarting it each time.

Well, the final straw came just over a week ago when the priming handle
broke whilst priming the filter. Of course this happened about 5pm on a
Sunday, when all the shops were shut !! I put a Fluval 2 from the other
tank in, just to keep the fish alive until morning. I also dropped all
the sponges from the accursed Eheim rubbish filter (grr) into the tank.

We got a Hydor Prime 30 (http://www.hydor.com/inglese/prime.htm) which
the man in the LFS said he had been selling for about 15 years and was
very happy with. This was a different world from the Eheim. Instead of
hours of frustration and fiddling, it just plugged in and worked !!

Anyway, so we now had a brand new filter running on a fairly well
populated aquarium. There are about 28 2"-3" cichlids in there. I have
left the Fluval 2 in for the moment and have cut back the feeding whilst
the new filter matures.

My question is (after all that waffling !!) how long do I need to keep
the sponges and Fluval 2 in and how long before I can go back to a
normal feeding regime ? So far all looks well, but I'm being fairly
cautious here. I haven't done a water change since the disaster either.

Any advice or comments welcome. TIA

--
Alan Silver
PSG Fish Tanks - http://fish.alansilver.co.uk/

"Alan Silver" wrote in message
news
Hello,

We have a 220 litre cichlid tank that has been running happily for
several months now (see http://fish.alansilver.co.uk/Mark3/). It was
running an Eheim Ecco 2235 filter, but I wasn't happy with it. I had a
lot of trouble every time it needed cleaning (which was far more
regularly than I had expected). I was very unimpressed by the poor
design of this filter and had a lot of trouble restarting it each time.

Well, the final straw came just over a week ago when the priming handle
broke whilst priming the filter. Of course this happened about 5pm on a
Sunday, when all the shops were shut !! I put a Fluval 2 from the other
tank in, just to keep the fish alive until morning. I also dropped all
the sponges from the accursed Eheim rubbish filter (grr) into the tank.

We got a Hydor Prime 30 (http://www.hydor.com/inglese/prime.htm) which
the man in the LFS said he had been selling for about 15 years and was
very happy with. This was a different world from the Eheim. Instead of
hours of frustration and fiddling, it just plugged in and worked !!

Anyway, so we now had a brand new filter running on a fairly well
populated aquarium. There are about 28 2"-3" cichlids in there. I have
left the Fluval 2 in for the moment and have cut back the feeding
whilst
the new filter matures.

My question is (after all that waffling !!) how long do I need to keep
the sponges and Fluval 2 in and how long before I can go back to a
normal feeding regime ? So far all looks well, but I'm being fairly
cautious here. I haven't done a water change since the disaster either.

Any advice or comments welcome. TIA

--
Alan Silver
PSG Fish Tanks - http://fish.alansilver.co.uk/

Hi Alan, is there a way that you could put the Eheim filter media into
the Hydor for a few weeks. That might cycle your tank in a few days, and
the rest of the time is for the bacteria to migrate through the Hydor's
media. Keeping the feeding low is a good idea. If they get too
irritable, drop the temperature a couple of degrees.

Anyway that you do it, your test kit's ammonia and nitrite measurements
will reveal if there is anything out of balance. With your fish load in
a 60g tank, I'd be cautious too ;~)

By the way, your tank looked gorgeous when it was almost empty. When are
you going to add some more recent pictures? I can imagine what it looks
like with 28 cichlids in there, but I'd rather see it ).
--
www.NetMax.tk

In message , NetMax
writes
Hi Alan, is there a way that you could put the Eheim filter media into
the Hydor for a few weeks. That might cycle your tank in a few days,
and the rest of the time is for the bacteria to migrate through the
Hydor's media.

I thought about that, but for some reason (forgotten now) I kept the new
media in the Hydor and just dropped the Eheim ones in the tank.

Keeping the feeding low is a good idea. If they get too irritable,
drop the temperature a couple of degrees.

They all seem fine. I haven't seen any casualties and it's been ten days
since the Eheim crashed. I'm hoping things are sorting out in there.

Anyway that you do it, your test kit's ammonia and nitrite measurements
will reveal if there is anything out of balance. With your fish load
in a 60g tank, I'd be cautious too ;~)

I knew someone would suggest that !! I got lazy and complacent and never
replaced the test kits when the old ones ran out. It might be an idea to
get some more I suppose ;-) You kinda forget about using them with an
established tank, and the new one was set up with a fully matured filter
(been on the old tank for about three months).

By the way, your tank looked gorgeous when it was almost empty. When
are you going to add some more recent pictures? I can imagine what it
looks like with 28 cichlids in there, but I'd rather see it ).

It looks fantastic !! I have a few recent pictures, but no time to
update the site. I really want to get some more powerful lighting over
the tank so I can get some better shots. My photography skills aren't
great, and most of the shots I have are a bit blurred. I'm hoping with
some more light (even if only for the pics), I should be able to get
some better shots.

I'll keep you posted ;-)

Thanx for the reply

--
Alan Silver
PSG Fish Tanks - http://fish.alansilver.co.uk/

In message , NetMax
writes
By the way, your tank looked gorgeous when it was almost empty. When
are you going to add some more recent pictures? I can imagine what it
looks like with 28 cichlids in there, but I'd rather see it ).

Well, I'm getting there ;-)

I finally got time to put up some more pictures. They are mainly from
when the second fish were introduced, and some from when I rearranged
the tank a bit. They are a bit blurry as my photography skills aren't so
great (yet), but you can get the idea.

Please have a look at http://fish.alansilver.co.uk/Mark3/Gallery/ - the
first two entries are new additions.

I've also updated http://fish.alansilver.co.uk/Mark3/bg5.asp (the great
background disaster) as we had an old film developed and I found a
couple more pictures, including one of the first background. You can see
the difference between the two. I can't say I'm glad the disaster
happened, but I ended up with a *much* better background second time
round !!

Ta ra

--
Alan Silver
PSG Fish Tanks - http://fish.alansilver.co.uk/