Hi, New tank

[biomags]

Hi,

I've had betta fish for a while now. "Stupid Fish" was my first. He was an incredible, intelligent fish that I had for maybe 3-4 years. His name came from the fact that he just wouldn't eat the first couple weeks. He won me over to fish and I still miss that manipulative little fish. I now have a female ~2 year old Betta named Mori in a 2 gal tank.

The reason I joined is a friend just gave me a used 47 gal corner tank. I'm hoping to turn it into a tropical fresh water community tank with 3-4 species. It has an on-the-back topfin filter for a 55gal tank and a heater. I've filled it with water, seeded it with the betta's fish water. Its been cycled (no NH3 or NO2) for a few days now and the betta is giving it a trial run. 47 gal Betta Bowl

Questions?
I'm thinking Julii Cory's, Boeseman's Rainbowfish and plattys. The Boeseman get big is a corner tank long enough for them to swim?

Another option is rather then the Rainbowfish, some danios and odessa barbs. It looks like there might be a temperature conflict with the Cory's/plattys by a degree. Would this still be do-able or any better recommendations?

 

[mistersprinkles]

You can't cycle a new tank by putting used water in there. There's no beneficial bacteria in the water.

Have you been running a filter on your betta's tank? Take the filter media out and put it in the new tank. Gravel too. If not theres nothing you can do. You'll have to fishless cycle the corner tank for a month. Or you can get some cycled filter media (preferably biomedia like foam or bio-rings or bioballs etc) from somebody else's running aquarium and put it in your filter to kickstart the tank. Then you can start right away with a small number of small fish.

All your fish choices are fine except possibly the rainbows. A corner tank doesn't give much horizontal swimming space. Perhaps dwarf neon rainbows? Same body shape, smaller, blue body. Nice fish.

The 1 degree temperature difference is nothing to worry about for those two fish. You can fudge it a couple of degrees in either direction and usually be ok (they say to keep amano shrimp below 78 but I have kept them at 82).

 

[biomags]

Thanks Mistersprinkles,

I had not realized the water had no beneficial bacterial. I had already snagged some of the betta's gravel for decoration purposes (happy accident). The betta filter is now in the new tank. With the nearest lfs a good hour away I won't be getting fish for at least a few more weeks.