Our 5g tank will house a betta

[dragon14]

Tonight we started cycling the 5g tank we had our Pygmy catfish and company quarantined in for my mother in law to have a betta fish!!

I'm excited to do my 2nd fishless cycle and to give another betta a good home

 

[Sawyer_Peyton18]

Hope it turns out great


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[Fishfur]

If you can provide the light they need, try to add some plants. They will speed up the cycle and the Betta will appreciate having them around.

 

[dragon14]

Hope it turns out great


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

Thanks

 

[dragon14]

I would love to have plants but don't you need special lighting? We can't really spend any more money at the moment other than for the fish that will live in there.

 

[Ricky 1]

I may have got this wrong, do you mean you have your own tank and your cycling this 5g for your mother-in-law.......on a fishless cycle?

 

[Fishobsessed7]

Some plants need special lighting but not all. Hornwort, Java fern, Java moss, Anubias, Cryptocoryne wendtii just to name a few


Fishobsessed7

 

[dragon14]

We are cycling our 5g tank for my mother in law to have a betta.

We have a 10g ourselves.

Thank you fishobsessed

 

[Ricky 1]

You can cycle your 5g from your 10g is that what you've done??

 

[dragon14]

We used a sponge from our tank but that's it.

 

[Fishfur]

That should have sped up a cycle quite a bit.

Another thing you can do would be to clean your filter, in the smallest amount of tank water you can, then pour the cleaning water into the 5G filter. It will have tons of shed bacteria in it who will mostly take up residence in the new filter and greatly speed up the cycle.

True, you might need some light to grow a number of plants, but Anubias, Java fern and Java moss, if you can obtain some, will not only assist the cycle, they will also be appreciated by the Betta. In nature, they live in thickly vegetated areas, so plants are something they do appreciate. Even a simply desk lamp with a 6500 K spiral bulb in it would grow some of the low light plants very well, and use far less power than an incandescent bulb that produces about the same amount of light.

Something to think about for later on if you can't do it now.

 

[dragon14]

Thank you Fishfur for everything in your last reply .

I'll let you know if I have any plant questions.

 

[dragon14]

I think we'll do the filter thing soon . What a fantastic idea!!

 

[dragon14]

Oh my wow!

8 days after we started the cycle and 0 ammonia 0 nitrite and 80ish nitrate. Wow! Gonna dose it w ammonia and see if it clears within 24 hours... This is exciting!!!

 

[dragon14]

A little early to be excited! Three days before yesterday was when I last dosed the tank w ammonia and tested.

Today 24 hrs after:
Ammonia 1ppm
Nitrite 1ppm
Nitrates 80+

So it's going good, it's just not as far along as we thought.

 

[Ricky 1]

Oh my wow!

8 days after we started the cycle and 0 ammonia 0 nitrite and 80ish nitrate. Wow! Gonna dose it w ammonia and see if it clears within 24 hours... This is exciting!!!

At this stage I would have put some fish in and let nature take it's course

 

[dragon14]

Thanks Ricky1, but we want to make sure it clears the ammonia we put in it within 24 hours... going to test it again tomorrow and see what happens

 

[dragon14]

Well today ammonia was .25, nitrite .50. So it's coming along, just as not as fast as we had thought... I added a tiny bit of ammonia for the bacteria to munch on.

We'll keep testing until it is all cycled! I think we'll do the filter rinsing that you suggested too FishFur

 

[dragon14]

Some plants need special lighting but not all. Hornwort, Java fern, Java moss, Anubias, Cryptocoryne wendtii just to name a few


Fishobsessed7

If we got some of the above named live plants... do they need real sand or anything special? Or do you just plunk em in the tank?

 

[dragon14]

True, you might need some light to grow a number of plants, but Anubias, Java fern and Java moss, if you can obtain some, will not only assist the cycle, they will also be appreciated by the Betta. In nature, they live in thickly vegetated areas, so plants are something they do appreciate. Even a simply desk lamp with a 6500 K spiral bulb in it would grow some of the low light plants very well, and use far less power than an incandescent bulb that produces about the same amount of light.

Something to think about for later on if you can't do it now.

Do we have to get a light, or would the above named plants do ok without a light?