Question:I bought my 5 gallon tank, my betta and a couple of live plants, came home, dumped everything into the tank (with treated water) and thought things would go fine. Of course, I was wrong. My tank started to cycle and now I am stuck.
I have removed the betta and put him in a temporary tank. I was told to remove everything in my tank, including the live plants, fill the tank up again with clean treated water, put in a filter and wait 24 hours.
I have removed the live plants as well, and now my tank just contains water that has betta poop in it. Now, I have a sponge filter from another tank that I can start the cycle off with. I've also read that I need a source of ammonia, but couldn't I just use the old water in my tank since I already made the mistake of keeping my betta in there for say, 3 or 4 days?
Do I just leave the old water in the tank (it's half gone - do I top it up with clean water?) and put my sponge filter in? What about the live plants? When can I start putting fish in?
Answers:
If you have a filter from a mature tank that means you have introduced live bacteria of both types. Now is the time to put in your fish, before the bacteria starves and dies. With this bacteria, there's no reason not to add fish - the little bit of poop from your betta won't do much itself.
Topping off the water will introduce 50% clean water. perfect. You can put the live plants in at any point too, and never really needed to remove them.
first of course it will start to cycle if it has a filter
second wtf arent u a top contributor for fish
now to the queestion get your self a ammonia, nitrite, nitrate test kit once the cycle is done the ammonia should be zero the nitrite should be zero and the nitrate sould be less than 10ppm
keep the rest of the old water in and top the rest off
add water conditioner to kill chlorine
leave the filter in and wait to its finished its cycle
live plants wont die in a cycle as far as i know but even the betta has limits dont put him in he will stress out untill its finished
OK, Remove everything and since you still have the old cycled water clean out the tank put the gravel then plants in, after that add the old water then fill with new conditioned water, add the filter. Then let it settle for i would say 24hours then add the Betta.
The ammonia source is from the urine and fish poop transferring to nitrite(another harmful chemical) then transferring to nitrate(a safe chemical for fish transferring all nitrite and ammonia to nitrate) to tell when the water is completely cycled there should be some kind an algae growth. TIP:Doing water changes helps speed-up the cycle process.
And elementkid its much more harder to take care of a 5gallon tank then a 20 or 55gallon tank because of high chance of ammonia spikes and other water problems like temperature(let say the room your in is 70degrees Fahrenheit but the betta needs a constant water temperature of 75-80 or 90degrees Fahrenheit).
Hope this helps
WT
OK wow! I'm probably going to get low ratings for this answer but to tell you the truth, it really isn't that deep. We are talking about a betta which is descendant of fish that maintain their lives in the rice patties of Asia! These are for the most part, very hardy fish! These are fish that are kept in jelly jars and brandy sniffers all over the world. As an avid aquarist myself I aware of the importance of cycling your tanks, but in this example the worst that could have happened had you left that tank set set up the way it was was a bacterial bloom that would have cleared up in a few days with a few partial water changes. I think you could have trusted yourself a little more with this one and done what you were doing.
Honestly cycling a 5 gallon tank with a filter with only a betta isn't something that is complex. Just:
1)fill tank with treated water
2)Add betta
3)Change 30% of your water every week with a gravel vacuum/siphon.
After 3-4 weeks the tank will be cycled. Betta are tough fish and will survive in a cycling tank unless you over feed them.
PS- An ammonia source is food. Food = ammonia. It doesn't matter if it's eaten or not it gets convert to ammonia.
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