Chenisemummy Fishless Cycle Log

[CheniseMummy]

Hello Ive had my sons betta tank delivered today it came with an overhead spray bar type filter. I have other canister filters around that are unused and also a sponge filter that you add to a air pump.

Which filter would be best.

I'm going to do the fishless cycle on this one. Starting tomorrow. I want to add gravel, bogwood and jave ferm amazon sword also a terracotta pot should i add these after the fishless cycles finishes.

Thanks

 

[drobbyb]

Unless you are going for a heavily planted setup, I would hold off on the plants for now. Plants will remove ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate from the water column and they could affect your cycle. There is talk that cycling isn't really needed in some heavily planted tank setups as the plants, if given the right conditions, will use up the ammonia that is being produced. I'm not 100% on the details of that but I believe that you need a lot of plants to achieve this.

If you are just planting a few, I would hold off planting until the cycle has completed.

Here's the post related to that: Planted tanks and fishless cycling

 

[CheniseMummy]

i want to go fishless for sure so should i just add gravel and pot. any thoughts on filter?

 

[waterdrop]

Although bettas enjoy some exercise in a stream of current from time to time, they also obviously enjoy having somewhere in the tank they can be peaceful (one even liked to "relax in his hammock" someone described to me ) so I might see whether I could choose a filter that would create these possibilities in the tank space situation. You might even run them with plain water and put your hand in to feel what sort of currents you were getting and where.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[CheniseMummy]

15/09/10 Added ammonia up to reading of 4.9ppm
added some tank water with squezzed out bacteria from my filter to the new tank filter im using the overhead filter that came with the tank but can swap to a another filter if things dont progress well.

When should i re test? for ammonia tomorrow morning? ive put some bogwood in with some falme moss attached and the gravel.

 

[toshapetriji]

Your aim is to identify when ammonia reaches zero so personally I would test a couple of times a day particularly as you have given the filter a squeeze of bacteria.

Hopefully you are going to see some movement quite quickly.

 

[drobbyb]

It takes a while for the bacteria to develop that break down ammonia, certainly more than a week if you did not use any mature media. I would save my reagents until then.

 

[CheniseMummy]

Tested this morning and got same for ammonia but trace of nitrites. Ive set tank up to 30c oops but i forgot to plug back in the fluval mini in my big tank the sats were fine tho so i assume if any bac had been lost either the 3+ picked up the work load or everything is ok. I might in couple days remove a piece from the mini and add it to the new filter.

Think i will test agin tomorrow evening and see if any change.