New tank syndrome cure

rke

Gambusia
MFK Member
Jan 13, 2016
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Cured a new tank syndrome using an existing fish tank and swapping water from one to the other until all the water had been cycled through 100%. Only do about 1/4 of the water at a time then back to the one it came from. First drain the new tank about 1/4th, then drain water from a cycled tank poor it into your new tank. Then take water from your new tank poor it into your older tank. Continue these steps about 6-8 times to achieve your best chances of curing new tank syndrome. This will put free floating benificial bacteria into the new setup and allow you to save new fish before they die. I saved my 2 new 4 inch arowanas. Now they look better then when I received them. Hope this helps someone else save their fish someday.
 
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arowanaman85

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Feb 8, 2016
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interesting, always just used media from old tank in new tank....or purigen
 

FreshyFresh

Peacock Bass
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Aug 24, 2015
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There's no harm in doing this, provided the "old" water is healthy, the problem is, the beneficial bacterial you need to process your ammonia are going to reside in your sponge filters or bio media. Sure, there's some on the hardscape and a tiny bit in the water, but not enough to process waste. This is pretty much a proven fact as far as I know.

To me, there's no such thing as "old" or "new tank syndrome". It's a lack of proper water parameters.
 
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rke

Gambusia
MFK Member
Jan 13, 2016
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I agree to all of that media from the old added to the new to process wasteve is a proven method! Although I still needed that filter on that old tank to keep going so setting up my new tank was tricky from scratch. Added fish about 3 days after setting up and supplemented with ammonia treatments and live bacteria to try to get tests to hit 0 before adding my new fish once this was done I added new fish still caused fish to act like it was a new tank. Once I added water that tested good to the new one it cured there problem up pretty fast. Helped start waste and bacteria faster in my opinion is all I wanted to share. Hope this can help someone out saving there new fish like I did
 
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