Bettas, need advice

An acquaintance was showing off pictures of her planted aquariums and they are gorgeous. At that time, I had a tank with two goldfish, but had two 10 gals empty and I set those up. It has been some years since I purchased tropical fish and I completely forgot about cycling. The two 10s are going to be crustacean tanks and are in the process of being planted.
I went over to Aquabid and saw a good deal on a betta group and bought them.
The guy selling them had 80 left at that time.
So I have 10 bettas on the way.
I bought tanks, the tanks just arrived (except 1 which was damaged in transit and the replacement is en route) and bought some plants and accessories.
Each betta tank will have a betta and two baby mystery snails.
I don't know what I should do, I've tried to anticipate all the things they will need but what should I do about cycling? I do have bacteria in the goldfish tank, maybe I can take one of the two filters in that tank, and get a bucket of dechlorinated water, and sort of smoosh around the filter media and seed the new tanks with the bacteria water?

 

10? Yikes. I doubt you would have enough bacteria in your one tank to do the smoosh method and establish one tank much less 10. Might want to get some Safe Start or Nite-Out. A LOT of it. Or you could do fish-in cycles managed with large daily water changes. It would be a ton of work to do that many water changes on 10 tanks for a month or more. Maybe a better idea (typing as I think here) would be to set up just five of them, get some opaque dividers and put two in each so you're only dealing with 5 cycling tanks at a time. Then as those get established you can seed new tanks. My advice is put some sponge filters in so they will have some beneficial bacteria, but not all of it for the tank, and you can put the sponge filters in the new tanks to get them going without crashing the cycle of the one you just established.

 

Thank you for your reply. I'm appreciating that I didn't get flamed, I realize my forgetfulness may cause issues for the fish but I'm going to do my part to minimize any adverse consequences to them.
I don't mind doing water changes, each tank is only 5 gallons. I bought the following chemicals but would please ask for some input before I use any of them:

Aqua Safe
Biozyme
Proper pH 7.5
Stress Zyme

Plus I have a bunch of plants arriving in a day or two.

 

I've never used Biozyme or Stress Zyme so I can't give an opinion on those. I've used Safe Start with success and I know one member here had a good thread about his use of Nite-Out and it seemed to work well. I wouldn't bother with the pH chemical. Your fish will acclimate to your pH unless it's ridiculous or if it's under 6.0. Aqua Safe is a decent dechlorinator, but if I were you I would get Prime instead because not only will it remove chlorine and chloramine, but it also detoxifies ammonia and nitrite for 24 hours so it won't get lethal between your water changes.

 

You could try safe start Ive heard that's good:-\

 

Thank you for your reply. I'm appreciating that I didn't get flamed, I realize my forgetfulness may cause issues for the fish but I'm going to do my part to minimize any adverse consequences to them.
I don't mind doing water changes, each tank is only 5 gallons. I bought the following chemicals but would please ask for some input before I use any of them:

Aqua Safe
Biozyme
Proper pH 7.5
Stress Zyme

Plus I have a bunch of plants arriving in a day or two.

All the chemicals you have listed are junk except Aquasafe. In an aquarium, the ; less chemical used the better. Stress zyme is a bacteria additive that is meant to clean your substrate of the decaying food and convert ammonia into nitrite and nitrite into nitrate. Sounds good and all ey? No. You will have to add this product weekly because it contains the land-based form of nitrifying bacteria that will die in a fully aquatic system. Also, this land based bacteria out competes the natural water based, a.k.a real bacteria for food which prevents the real bacteria from forming.

I have never heard the product Bio-zyme working and have no experience using it but if I had to guess, I would say it contains the same land-based form of bacteria as well. Very few bacteria additives on the market today contain real aquatic nitrifying bacteria.

Any pH chemical is a waste and shouldnt be used. They actually do more harm than good. Large fluctuations of your pH will cause stress on your fish which can kill or make them ill. If you have the need to alter your pH, there are other more natural safer ways to go by doing it. Your fish will adapt to whatever pH you have if you acclimate them properly. You'll get a little wiggle room for mistake since they are bettas and one of the most hardy fish ive seen.

Good luck and Welcome to the forum!
For cycling your tank, I think the best you can do in a day is get a little of the bacteria in your other tanks into the new 5 gal systems. This will give you a little head start. If your goldfish tanks have been set-up and established for a few months, then I'm just about positive that a little swoosh in each tank will cycle you or cycle you half way. Bettas have a low bio-load while goldfish are waste machines with heavy bio-loads. Having a filter on your 5 gallon tanks will do you great. You'll need a heater for your bettas as they are tropical. Also, try to get plants that are fast growing like hornwort, water wisteria, frog bit, etc to help suck up some ammonia during the cycling process. These plants are all low light so it shouldnt be that much of an issue.

 

Thanks for all the info, and the welcome!! I will return the junk stuff to Petco.
Have had the goldfish for at least a year, and their tank has two filters, maybe I'll smoosh both sets of filter media.
The heaters are enroute from Amazon.com and guaranteed to be here by tomorrow. I bought regular suction cup thermometers for each tank, not the digital.

 

If you haven't been to petsmart yet, I really love stress coat for freshly moved fish; it helps rebuild the slime coat fairly well.
If you're taking filter media from your goldfish, just be sure you don't take too much. I'm sure you know by now how much BB they really need, and how quick they can crash their tank with all that waste. I'd strongly suggest using TSS, simply to prevent any issues, and (maybe a stupid question) are you aging your water ahead of time?

 

Bettas need heaters also.

 

I have my doubts on the filters for one tank seeding 10 tanks equaling almost the same water volume, just based on my experience... I couldn't get one 10 gallon to fully cycle with a "smoosh" from a 55 gallon goldfish tank so I'm just speaking from my experience. It had sky high (off the charts) nitrites for over a week. It did kick start it, but if I'd had fish in there, they would have died without large daily water changes. So please keep checking the ammonia and nitrite levels on the new tanks and don't expect a magic bullet.

Lucille, do you have a test kit for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH?

 

are you aging your water ahead of time?

No, see post #1

Bettas need heaters also.

Thank you. See post #7.

Lucille, do you have a test kit for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH?

I bought an inadequate one from Petco and I only have a few ammonia strips left for my goldfish, I don't test their water often. Will get a better one when I return the chemicals to Petco.

 

Great. I would get the API Master Test kit drops. It's a bit of an initial investment, but over the long run it is way more economical than strips. It will last a long, long time and it's easier to read and some say more accurate.

 

Great. I would get the API Master Test kit drops. It's a bit of an initial investment, but over the long run it is way more economical than strips. It will last a long, long time and it's easier to read and some say more accurate.

Thanks!! Just wrote that down, will get it at Petco. In your opinion, do I need to test each of the 10 tanks daily since they will be identically stocked?

As far as initial investment, my wonderful deal on my 10-lot of bettas has morphed into the national debt ;D But I am looking forward to getting my bettas and having them happy and healthy.

 

I'm sorry, I re-read post #1, but didn't find anything there about aging water, or doing anything else to prepare your water for cycling, other that "get a bucket of dechlorinated water". I was asking if you were aging water in order to achieve dechlorination, or if you were simply going to treat 50G of water chemically, which is relevant if you have ever tried to set up such a large number of tanks all at once.

 

That is my fault for skimming over posts. Lol

 

Thanks!! Just wrote that down, will get it at Petco. In your opinion, do I need to test each of the 10 tanks daily since they will be identically stocked?

As far as initial investment, my wonderful deal on my 10-lot of bettas has morphed into the national debt ;D But I am looking forward to getting my bettas and having them happy and healthy.

Yes, I do think you need to test them each. That is why I suggested consolidating to five to start and using dividers. 10 tanks times five minutes to wait for the test to develop, you already have almost an hour of time eaten away each day, and with cycling I like to test in the morning and at night just to be sure so potentially two hours.

 

I set up 9 kits (sure hope #10 gets here soon), filter is going, lights in place, dechlorinator, sand, and smooshed with goldfish filter water.

I'm calling it a day!

Thanks to all who make comments and suggestions.

 

Good luck with all your betta stuff. Where are you going to put all 10 tanks?

I would have to put 1 tank in every room!

 

I have a tiny dining room between the kitchen and the living room, they are all going there. There are already 3 aquariums in the kitchen.
I think having them all in one area will make it easier to feed, do water changes, and to enjoy watching them.

 

Good luck. Be sure to share pics with us when it's done!

 

I set up 9 kits (sure hope #10 gets here soon), filter is going, lights in place, dechlorinator, sand, and smooshed with goldfish filter water

Stupid question... when you typed this, did you mean you pulled water from the goldfish tanks and put it in the new ones to help kick-start the cycle?