In a few weeks here my 40 gallon tank will be cycled, it currently has 3 of my mystery snails in it. There is a thin layer of gravel which I am going to add onto once I put plants in there, but I was wondering if I could use Athenas gravel from the cycled tank when I'm moving her?

I figured what I would do is place her in the quarantine tub while I set up her new home. Like transfering about 10 gallons of the cycled water into the new tank, placing all the black established gravel in there(removing the riverstones as I'm going to use them to setup a 10 gallon beta tank), use one pretty mucky bubble wall, and taking her old filter media and placing it in extra area for the two emperor 280s that are on the 40. Her current filter is also a 280, but there is not enough room on the back of the tank for me to really run all three(I WISH!) because the space is broken up by a bar in the middle. I also want the old 280 to stay on the 20 so that I can eventually buy a pretty stand for it that is not my nightstand, and place another fancy in there. I'm assuming the filter itself has some BBs on it? I'd like to keep those healthy so I'll probably buy another mystery snail for it maybe to keep the ammonia up?

Anyway, does this sound like a good or bad idea? Any suggestions? :]

sounds pretty good hun, always good to transfer good BB's to the new tank and water this way gives the new tank a jump start to the cycling

Earth!Mother, I'm cycling a 50 gallon right now and I'm going to take some of the noodles out of a cycled 20 gallon and put it in the 50 gallon to try to speed up the cycle.

I hope your tank cycles quickly!

Thanks guys! :]

I've already added a handful of the cycled tanks gravel in there and when doing water changes I've added some of the water to the 40 gallon.

I hope yours cycles quickly too, Jack!

As long as you don't rinse the established gravel with tap water, and kill all the bacteria off in the process. You definetely should clean it somewhat, maybe in a bucket of tank water, since there is probably a lot of nasties in there. Trust me, no matter how clean you keep that gravel, it'll always be some muck stuck down there.

Andrea, it's the chlorine and the chloramine in the tap water that kills the bacs, correct? I have no chloramines in my tap water and I "age" my tap water for a minimum of 48 hours in multiple containers in my laundry room to get rid of any chlorine. These aged waters are safe for the bacs, yes?

yep that's the good way, she was talking about rinsing the gravel then placing it in the new tank.....shouldn't ever do that keep the gravel dirty till the tank is cycled in a since