Cycling a Fluidized Bed filter

[knobhill]

Hi,
Just installed a pentair/ rainbow FB 600 in my sump. My tank has been cycled for almost a year but I wanted to add more biological filtration due to the heavy bioload. All water parameters are great <20 nitrate, 0 nitrite, ammonia, ph = 6.5

It says in the manual that it takes 40 days to cycle the nitrosomas bacteria in the FBF, but with cycled water, it would be faster. Anyone know how much faster this happens?

 

[duanes]

If you have sand for substrate in a tank, you could ad a spoonful to make the new one cycle faster, but how long, is hard to tell, since nitrifying bacteria are generally sessile. But as long as your tank is already cycled you have no worries unless you plan on moving the FB to an uncycled tank.

I use a DIY model that hold about 10lbs of sand, and stands 3'high.

 

[knobhill]

cool setup. I will probably wait about 3 weeks before adding more fish. thanks for the info

 

[T1KARMANN]

wow i had much more sand in my sand filter

 

[duanes]

The sand in mine is very light aragonite, it's easily blown outand is about 8-10 inches deep, I use it as much to help stabilize alkalinity, as for the biological purpose. It tends to dissolve over a fairly short time.