Cycling My Tank?

[T'sMommy]

Hi guys. I am fairly new to bettas (had them as a kid but sadly I have since found we did NOT take care of them like we should have). I just got my boy a little over a week ago, his name is Takeo. He is a gorgeous reddish halfmoon and I love him very much and have been reading nonstop since getting him, but even with all my reading I just found out about tank cycling today He is in a 2.5 gallon with a very gentle filter; had to take the heater out cuz it was too big and heated it too much, but in the process of getting a new one! His temp has stayed around 76-78 degrees though, so I think he's reasonably warm for now. Anyway, I am so worried because I did not cycle the tank and am now terrified of poisoning him, as I will now have to cycle with him in it. Have been doing weekly water changes and just did a full change last Thursday. Also looking into getting a live plant this weekend as I hear they eat amonia? Any help would be beneficial, just keep in mind I'm in a dorm, so as much as I'd love to upgrade to a bigger tank, it's not an option right now

 

[phoenix2081]

You are right in thinking that plants will use the ammonia and should lower our ammonia levels slightly.

As for water changes you do not need to do them weekly. You will need to do them daily. During my fish in cycle I was doing 50% water changes daily, remember to dechlorinate everytime goes without saying.

Get yourself a master test kit, no strips as they are innacurate. Test daily and watch your ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. You will want to change your water daily until you see a reading of 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 40-80 nitrates. Once you have had readings as just stated for a week then you are good to continue with your weekly changes and maintenance.

Personally I would always run a heater as you never know when the temperature may drop. The heater will stop this from happening.

Check out the fish in cycle thread here: http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/277264-beginners-resource-center/

Then if you have any questions come back.

 

[CezzaXV]

Phoenix is right.

Live plants will eat ammonia, but the amount a single plant will eat will be neglible and probably not even noticeable. Not saying don't get live plants, as I personally think they look much nicer than fake ones, but they might not have the desired effect.

Get yourself a liquid test kit and test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrates every day religiously. Whenever you see any ammonia or nitrite above 0.25, do a water change. Phoenix did 50% but it depends on how much you detect. If you had 1ppm, a 50% change would leave you with 0.5ppm which is still too high. Use your common sense on this one. It's also okay to do multiple water changes if one isn't enough. Eventually you'll reach a point where it happens less and less, until eventually it never happens and you can consider yourself cycled.

As for the heater, was it an adjustable one? Many heaters designed for small tanks are preset but if you found it was making the water too warm you may need to invest in an adjustable one. a 25W one should do - they're available quite cheaply online and quite small. Different websites disagree on exactly what temperature to keep bettas at, but they all seem to agree that you're at the lower limit, so if your room gets colder for any reason your little guy is going to struggle. You'll also find your cycle will go a little faster if the water is warmer, as the bacteria prefer it.

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to our forum T'sMommy.
As others have already said, you are in a fish-in cycle and will need to do lots of huge water changes. I usually recommend that people not mess about with minimum acceptable water changes but do huge ones instead. The reason is simple. If you do just enough water change to get parameters in spec, they will quickly get outside of acceptable values. If you do a huge water change, you may actually get to skip a day and still have things stay acceptable. Our target parameters is that ammonia and nitrites never exceed 0.25 ppm, so water changes that will assure those values before the next test are our minimum target. If you do a 90% or larger water change instead, you get a bit of breathing room to the limits.