JennaNiccole
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2017
- Messages
- 12
Hi,
So backstory, on June 4th I impulse bought a gorgeous betta I'd fallen in love with at my LFS. I wasn't planning on a betta, but I did have an empty 10 and extra filters, so I figured cycling wouldn't be too hard. I used 50% of the established media in one of my other tanks, picked up some seachem stability, and figured I'd go through a mini cycle but that it'd establish pretty quickly and be fine. Unfortunately this betta doesn't seem to be able to tolerate any filter flow at all- even with the exact same filter baffled the exact same way that I have it in my other betta tank. I had to switch to a sponge filter just to keep him from refusing to swim and getting stuck places, but now I'm back to square one with cycling. (Side note I did put the filter the betta didn't like on my uncycled to-be snail tank and it cycled within 5 days!)
My question is, how long will it probably take to do a fish in cycle in a 10 gallon with a sponge filter? I've been doing 30-40% water changes every day or every other day and using seachem stability and prime, ammonia tends to be around .25ppm. I've never done fish in cycling before, so I know usually it takes me about 6 weeks with no water changes to cycle a tank, but obviously I can't let the ammonia build up as high as I do without fish!
I know it's at least half my own fault for impulse buying, but I'm just kind of tired of such frequent water changes and I'm hoping to know if I should expect to have to do daily water changes for something like 2 weeks, or 6 weeks, or 4 months?
So backstory, on June 4th I impulse bought a gorgeous betta I'd fallen in love with at my LFS. I wasn't planning on a betta, but I did have an empty 10 and extra filters, so I figured cycling wouldn't be too hard. I used 50% of the established media in one of my other tanks, picked up some seachem stability, and figured I'd go through a mini cycle but that it'd establish pretty quickly and be fine. Unfortunately this betta doesn't seem to be able to tolerate any filter flow at all- even with the exact same filter baffled the exact same way that I have it in my other betta tank. I had to switch to a sponge filter just to keep him from refusing to swim and getting stuck places, but now I'm back to square one with cycling. (Side note I did put the filter the betta didn't like on my uncycled to-be snail tank and it cycled within 5 days!)
My question is, how long will it probably take to do a fish in cycle in a 10 gallon with a sponge filter? I've been doing 30-40% water changes every day or every other day and using seachem stability and prime, ammonia tends to be around .25ppm. I've never done fish in cycling before, so I know usually it takes me about 6 weeks with no water changes to cycle a tank, but obviously I can't let the ammonia build up as high as I do without fish!
I know it's at least half my own fault for impulse buying, but I'm just kind of tired of such frequent water changes and I'm hoping to know if I should expect to have to do daily water changes for something like 2 weeks, or 6 weeks, or 4 months?
