Curious

[Harry Slim]

What brands do people recommend regarding smaller tanks?

 

[FishFinatic77]

You can do you fish-in cycle, but it is very stressful for the fish and for you. The best way to cycle a tank IMO is to do a fishless cycle. You just have to put some ammonia or fish food into the tank, and wait for ammonia to show up. Test the water every day until nitrites show up. You might have to add a little more ammonia at this point to feed the bacteria. Once nitrates show up, your pretty much done. Your end goal is to have 0 ppm ammonia, 0 ppm nitrites, and 0-20 ppm nitrates.

 

[Essjay]

There are two recommended ways to cycle a tank - fishless and silent.

This is how do do a fishless cycle https://www.fishforums.net/threads/cycling-your-new-fresh-water-tank-read-this-first.421488/


Silent cycling involves using live plants. These take up the ammonia made by the fish and they don't turn it into nitrite. There needs to be a good number of fast growing stem or floating plants and the plants are left to grow. Once signs of active growth are seen, fish can be added to the tank, but ammonia and nitrite should still be monitored daily to make sure the plants are removing all the ammonia.



What species of bettas do you plan on keeping? If it's Betta splendens, that means just one male, or a group of females and you need to add all the females at the same time.

 

[Essjay]

I see you edited your first post to something different, which is why the replies don't fit the question

 

[FishFinatic77]

Well that's a totally different question than it was a few minutes ago!

 

[FishFinatic77]

What kind of tank are you looking for? And how big?

 

[Shiverz]

It depends on what you mean by small. I would regard my tank as small at 65 litres, yet others start off with tanks as small as 10. If you know what size you're after maybe we can help point you in the right direction?

For instance mine is quite an old tank, it's an aquaone, aquastart 500. I like it, it's got a lid which is a perfect forcefield to prevent my cats getting too curious.

 

[LordHappy]

I have two Ultum Nature Systems 5N tanks...roughly 5 gallons, and in the next few days will either buy a 9.6g Landen or, possibly, the 11.3g Hydra Aquatics. Not because I don't like the UNS tanks, but I became annoyed with the vendor and UNS over answering the simple question of "who sells the glass lids with clips" and never finding a vendor, despite the UNS saying otherwise. I think a general trick to tank longevity is to not move it, don't use razor blades by the silicon and when you do move it, empty it out, first.

Also...I confess to loving the rimless look with mitered edges. That's a winner look for me.