cycling

[fish are my life]

i no this will sound stupid and all but how do you cycle a tank properly, my amonea and nitrate are at 0 which is good and my ph is 7.5. should i use a betta to cycle or not, cos i hav no idea what to do

 

[nshockeyplaya]

Please do research before asking questions, there are many stickies in the beginner forum explaning how to a cycle a tenk using the normal method (not recommonded) and the fishless method (recommended). There are many articles that explain how to do both.

 

[dlw545]

what is a "stickie" ?

 

[daza]

this forum calls them 'pinned' instead of stickies - you will find them at the top of each section. Look at the beginners section first. You need to cycle the tank to avoid getting 'new tank syndrome', there is an excellent article on that. Cycling is about establishing the nitrogen cycle, so also search for info on that. If you can find some ammonia then fishless cycling (another search term that will find lots of threads) is the way to go. Some people cycle with hardy fish, I'm not sure if a betta is one of them.

good luck