Axolponics

Thank you both very much, I did clean the filter last night and add just a bit of mulm water directly onto the auaponic grow media and today have 1ppm nitrites so it's working! I appreciate it! I never thought of the benefit of using the dual sponge type filter, but that is genius and I will be buying those in the future for sure!

Hi all, I have a heavily planted 20 long currently stocked with a juvenile axolotl and some shrimp, many years established with one sponge filter. I've been cycling a new 40 breeder for the axolotl since it's growing fast. I've moved over some free-floating plants and other decor items such as rocks to the 40b, and added a second, brand-new sponge filter to the 20 long so it can get colonized with BB in the established tank. The 40b has a small aquaponics-type setup (a small submersible pump running water across lava rock before falling back into the tank) but no filter on it at the moment. My question is this: the old sponge filter from the 20 long needs a good cleaning. Some folks online seem to believe it seeding the new tank with mulm water (the dirty water left after squeezing the sponge clean). If it works to establish a colony of BB more quickly, I can clean it back out before moving the axolotl, but if all it's doing is just dumping waste into the tank I'll pass on that. Has anyone here had any success seeding a new tank with mulm/squeezings from an old sponge filter? Another option would be to just go ahead and move over the axolotl to the new tank, and move the established filter along with it (leaving the new sponge filter in the 20 long). I plan to use the 20 long as a shrimp grow-out tank only, so I am sure the substrate and plants will handle the bioload of the shrimp just fine. I just was hoping to grow some bacterial colonies in the tank tank on the substrate and in the aquaponics rocks before moving over the axie, since just the established sponge filter alone might have a hard time keeping up with the bioload. I appreciate anyone's thoughts. I've already dumped in a bottle of Tetra SafeStart, as well. I added ammonia to the new tank and it's dropped some but not entirely.