Cycling amazonia

So I don't have any open tanks as of right now so I want to replace the substrate in my ebi tank and put Ada Amazonia in it.. Only problem is I have cherries a crystal and a bristle nose currently residing in this tank with no other place to put them if I were to put the Amazonia in it and try to cycle the tank. It s there a way where I can just out the Amazonia in a bucket with a filter and some moss and just keep doing water changes until the cycle is complete? Or if anyone else has some suggestions they would be greatly appreciated.

I'm not sure if that would work, because once you put it into the tank different peices of the substrate would be touching the water column. I'm not sure as I've never cycled that substrate before. But I do hear the later version of it take less cycling.

Yeah I'm thinking of putting all my inhabitants into a plastic tub with moss and some sponge filters until the tank cycles with the Amazonia in it. I have a little 3 gallon tub that should suffice for a while until I can get the Amazonia cycled.

What I would do: Go to the local thrift stores and see if you can find a 10 gallon or less, and use that temporarily. Usually they aren't pretty, and be sure to check for leaks before you start, but that's probably what I would do. I regularly find 10's at value village for $10 or less.

Or wait until petco has their $1 per gallon sale and get a 10 there, no worrying about leaks.

Of course a bucket will work if you don't care about seeing inside. If I was doing it, though, I would want some type of see-thru container; I've done the bucket thing before, and for some reason it bugs me to only be able to see from above.

Haha yeah I used a clear ice cream container I had and just washed it really good.. I tried to do one of the diy shrimp traps and only ended up catching my pleco :/ most of the shrimp are in the bucket now and actually looking a little happier than in the tank.. When I get off work I will try to swap out the substrate to start the new cycle

Maybe they like ice cream In my experience you can never quite get all of the smell out of those things, so maybe the delicious scent of ice cream is what's making them happy!

You definitely don't want to move amazonia - put it in and call it good. You'll have a mud nightmare on your hands if you try to move it after it's been soaking.

I'd throw some light over it and put in some floating plants too. Amazonia leaches tons of ammonia at first so it could be a while before it cycles unless you have a decent-sized filter with pre-seeded media.

It's going into an ebi tank but it has a seeded dual sponge filter and the fluval internal that it came with both have been running for over 6 months so I have some frog bit and moss and baby tears I want to throw in there while it's cycling... Will this be alright?

Hehe, it'll be fine, it's just a question of how long it'll take to cycle. The amazonia will likely overwhelm the existing bio filter, so it'll have to play catch-up for a bit. Who knows how long that'll be... you could get lucky and have it insta-cycle on you. Frogbit with decent lighting is a win for sure.

I have some other moss like plant growing in there as well I'm unsure as to what it is.. I will take a picture and post later... It looks really thin and light green

The more plants you have the better - all tank surface area has nitrifying bacteria on it.

Do you think my cherries and bv will acclimate well in those tank parameters once the tank is cycled? I need to find a new spot for them :/

That depends on where the PH stabilizes. Amazonia tends to take the PH down quite a bit.

You shouldn't be keeping BVs with Cherries (you'll lose the pure blue coloration). That said, I keep RCS in a tank with Amazonia, but I fought with the PH for several months early on. Neocaridina is happiest with a PH above 7. Amazonia likes to stabilize somewhere between 6 and 7, depending on how high your KH is out of the tap. This makes it ideal for soft-water shrimp like CRS, CBS, OEBTs, etc.

Yeah they were breeding like crazy in my fss and then when I switch to the flora. Base they halted I guess I'll have to find a new set up for them