Dave wrote:

Hello folks,

I've got a 35 gallon established planted tank (various swords and anubias)
with a bunch of cardinal tetras, a zebra pleco, 4 clown loaches, and black
rubber eel. I've also got an undergravel plate running with 2 mini
powerheads. It's been set up for 2 years now along with an aquaclear 300
power filter hanging off the back. Well...the aquaclear has become quite
noisy over time so I've decided to upgrade to an eheim cansiter filter (2213
model) which I bought 2 days ago. Since wednesday I've had the eheim set up
and I've kept the aquaclear also running so as to keep bacterial buildup
present throughout the switchover process. I've got the eheim running with
a layer of ceramic rings, a sponge from the aquaclear, followed by 3 new
circular eheim sponges and 1 polish sponge. I figured by using one of my
aquaclear sponges (I wuz running my aq 300 with 2 sponges and nothing
else).....that would kick start bacteria buildup in the eheim. My question
now is...how long should I keep the aquaclear running?? Is 2 days enough
time for the eheim to get enough bacteria buildup in order to hold the tank
on it's own??

Any and all pointers appreciated...

Get yourself a test kit and use it, they are especially for this
situation. For eg what are your nitrate levels and water changes like?
This would give you an idea of how well your old filters were keeping on
top of waste production. It is very hard to answer without some info
like this. For eg if your setup is well over specced there might be not
much feedstock available for the new filter with the aquaclear running
as well so you would be best off dropping the aquaclear. OTOH if you are
only just staying on top of things the eheim should not take longer than
say a week, especially with that sponge.

Peter

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