dancerhas

How small is too small to cycle?

I see these people keeping betta's in tiny little jars, tanks, etc...and I can't help wonder why the ammonia doesn't build up and kill them.

Is it possible to cycle a betta jar?

Also, what about those little cups you see betta's in at pet stores (Petsmart) They're TINY, you'd think they'd die almost instantly. I assume they add something to remove the ammonia from the water.

When I was a kid I had a goldfish in a 1.5 gallon plastic tank, with a little filter, some gravel, and a plastic plant. I religiously changed 100% of his water every weekend for about 2 years. Could his tank have been cycled instead of crazy water changing? (which probably shocked him to death eventually)

pinkfloydpuffer

Those little betta cups are the reason bettas usually come to us in such bad shape. They don't escape those deathcups without some harm being done.
If there's a filter, it can be cycled.

dancerhas

That really grinds my gears. They rant on about treating animals right, make you sign contracts when you get pets, and ask you for a donation for homeless pets every time you make a purchase, but they still sell betta's in those little cups. GRRR

I'm attempting to cycle our 1.5, for our snail. I had to buy a small filtration system, plus I added some Nutrafin Cycle. I really wasn't sure about the status of the tank because it had/has no nitrate or nitrite, and the original water was from our larger tank.

sirdarksol

If you could find something with enough surface area, and some way to create water flow across the surface area, you could cycle one of the cups, but it is (with current technology) either impossible or so expensive as to be economically unfeasible.
Bowls are a bit better. You can get some pretty small filters these days. However, they still can't be heated.

Basically, the bettas survive because they can breathe air when the ammonia damages their gills to the point that it would kill other fish. It's a really sad situation, and shouldn't ever come to that point.