i have just talked to our friends and found out it was only out of action for 2 weeks. Will postpone getting any fish for a week or so then. His not sure what fish he wants apart from a oscar thats all he has gone on about lol
This doesn't change anything. 4-6 hours is the maximum it has to be out of action before the bacteria start dying. So two weeks is no different from a month or a year or even from starting from scratch.
If you only postphone getting fish for a week, it just means all the mess of an uncycled filter will happen a week later. Please, please cycle your filter first. It is very simple and will save you time, money and most likely your fish's lives.
Cycling is very, very easy, here is how to do it (if you don't want to read the full article in the beginners section):
1. Buy some dechlorinator (for example, Aqua Safe) and a liquid test kit for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH (for example, API Freshwater Master Test Kit).
2. Fill your tank with water, dechlorinate and start the filter running.
3. Buy some pure household ammonia (so must contain only ammonia and water).
4. Add household ammonia to the aquarium to the point where the test will give you a reading of 3-4ppm. If you go over 4ppm, change some of the water to reduce the reading to 4ppm.
5. Test ammonia and nitrite every day and when you see ammonia fall to 0ppm, add more to bring it back to 3-4ppm. Never add ammonia more than once in 24 hours.
6. Once ammonia and nitrite fall to 0 ppm 12 hours after you added ammonia for 5-7 days in a row, drain the whole tank, refill with dechlorinated water and add all the fish you want to keep.
* Point of interest which can save your fish's lives: ammonia and nitrite readings over 0.25 ppm are very toxic to fish and can kill them.
* Why do you need to do this? This process grows the bacteria in the filter which will make ammonia and nitrite harmless to fish by converting them to nitrate.
* What is ammonia? Pee and crap. What is nitrite? What pee and crap turn into. What is nitrate? Plant fertiliser.
This process usually takes 4-6 weeks, but will be much faster (2-5 weeks) if you add some filter media into your filter which you take from a fish tank which is currently running. Apparently it looks like SafeStart (a cycle aid) may actually speed up the cycle even more, so it you are impatient, feel free to try it as well. You will need to keep a diary of the readings, such as this one: http
/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/353550-dodders-fishless-cycle/
If you are not willing to do the above, we can't help you any more because then you are going to be harming your fish on purpose.
The only alternative is a fish-in cycle where you will do large daily water changes, but your fish will be exposed to ammonia and nitrite in the process. I don't think you want to be half-draining your tank on a regular basis for 6 or more weeks, do you?
Exposing your fish to ammonia is not very different to what for a human would be like getting your own pee on your skin and then letting it burn you because you can't wash it off. Please don't do that.
p.s. your Betta is pretty
