Do I Really Have To Wait A Month?!

[Bluesand1313]

I don't know if it's true or not, but I think it's a little ridiculous. I have an already cycling 5 gallon in my room with two Oto's named Stiggy and Rocky. On Wednesday I am planning on adding a male betta to the five gallon. I was also rustling through my closet, and I found a 5 gallon (high instead of wide, like my other five gallon) plastic tank. I decided I wanted to get a male for the 5 wide gallon, and put a female and a mystery snail in the 5 high gallon.

First question: Is a mystery snail and a female betta in the five wide okay?
Second Question: My mum said I had to wait a whole month for it to cycle properly. Erm... after my betta Cato got fin rot and sadly didn't respond to the medication in the 5 wide gallon, I did almost a 100% water change, though not a full one because of Stiggy and Rocky were still in the tank. I had to get out the sickness though. (Or so my mum made me do..) and I had to wait about a week and a little for the water to cycle fully again. This leads me to believe that I don't have to wait a whole month, and instead after about a week I can do a water test and see if it's all good. If not, I will keep waiting.
But to say, right off the bat, that I have to wait a whole month? Do I really? Or can I just do a test to see?

I am not planning on breeding my pair. I just want a pretty male and I have always wanted a female.

 

[onidrase]

you can't cycle a tank without a source of ammonia. unless you have ammonia in your tap water, you can run a tank empty for years without building nitrafying bacteria, if that's what you're asking.

Just take some filter media (pads, sponges, etc) from your other tanks and run it in the new tanks filter, it should help with the bacteria growth if you have ammonia to feed it. won't take nearly as long as it would from scratch.

from what I know of your mom from the catfish thread, I wouldn't mark her words as excellent fish keeping advice.

 

[Bluesand1313]

If I did a water change on my five gallon that is already cycling and put some of the water in that tank then added fresh water to both, would it be like I was just doing a water change for both? It should have the essential bacteria already in there, and since I do almost half (30%) of my five gallon, it should be enough? I'd probably then let it run for a few days before adding the betta. Would that work?

I can't argue with my mum, so instead I have to do it when she isn't home. Like she told me for my five gallon I had to get an under gravel heater or filter or something, and all these expensive stuff for a betta that I didn't need. So one day when she was at work I just went out, bought some gravel and a plant, then put Captain Cato from his bowl to the five gallon. He was fine.. (Until the fin rot. ) But I don't think that was because I didn't have an under gravel heater or filter. I just had a heater. After that I went out and bought a filter for him because the other one was stressing him out.

The filter we have for the tank is really small, and it has built-in sponge/pad inside of it. So I can't take it out or replace it with my other ones, because those pads are much bigger (Probably bigger then the filter itself). You'd be surprised by how mighty that little filter is.

 

[Gvilleguy]

Hey blues, first, listen to your mother!

Then, within the bounds of her advice, take a listen to your forum friends here. A tank's helpful bacteria reside in the media in your filter. Not in the water itself. If you want to make the new tank filter cycle more quickly, if there was any way to cut or divide the existing filter media (even just a small chunk of it) and add it to the new filter, that would definitely be a big help.

If that is not an option, then the advice you will get here from most people is to start a fishless cycle on your new filter. And depending on your local water quality, it can take a week or up to a month.

Look at the "do and do not list" in my signature if you'd like the overview of fishless cycling. The only change I would make to that is that you can probably get away with just dosing ammonia up to 3 ppm to start out rather than 4 - 5 ppm.

 

[Bluesand1313]

Thank you, that was very helpful! I have an air stone and air pump, so I'll make sure to add that in!

 

[Gvilleguy]

Cool - come back with any more questions. We are here to help!