Small Success!

I just wanted to share with you guys my happy news! My daughter kept a betta in a 3.5 tank before we learned about the nitrogen cycle. She died after three weeks. :-( I cleaned the tank out but kept the biomedia, added some fish food,and the next thing I know, the tank was cycled (.25 ppm ammonia, 0 detectible nitrites, low levels of nitrates.). So I did a water change and two nights ago I rescued a very sad betta from Walmart (terrible conditions, he had barely any water and it was visibly filthy, the other tanks had several dead fish that the others were eating) and he is happy as can be. His colors are dull, but I’m hoping with a proper diet they will improve.
I am still working on cycling my 29 g with pure ammonia, but I think it’s going well. I’ll have to check the parameters tonight. Do you think adding some of the bio media from my 3.5 will help much? I haven’t tried since it’s a much smaller tank.

I’m trying to take this new hobby slowly. I find myself wanting to buy another tank already, and I haven’t even stocked my other one. Ha

 

HI & welcome, I'm not a huge fan of bettas but that one is beautiful, well done for rescuing it, adding bio-media from the 3.5 which sounds pretty much cycled will help populate the BB colony of your new tank but as you say take it slowly & make sure the cycle is well established before adding fish so you don't have to go through the loss like you did with the first betta. It's nice to see you've done your research & know about the nitrogen cycle before throwing a load of fish into a brand new tank.

 

HI & welcome, I'm not a huge fan of bettas but that one is beautiful, well done for rescuing it, adding bio-media from the 3.5 which sounds pretty much cycled will help populate the BB colony of your new tank but as you say take it slowly & make sure the cycle is well established before adding fish so you don't have to go through the loss like you did with the first betta. It's nice to see you've done your research & know about the nitrogen cycle before throwing a load of fish into a brand new tank.

Thank you! I was overwhelmed at first with all of the information, but I’m excited to keep learning as I get to create my community tank. Thanks for the advice.

 

I'm not trying to be rude, but am curious... I thought if a tank had .25 ammonia then it wasn't cycled? My tank has the same readings as yours, and I thought it wasn't cycled yet.

 

I assumed it was since I had nitrate readings. After a water change, it was back to zero. I hope I wasn’t wrong in this assumption? The way I understood it, once I got nitrate readings, the cycle was complete. Someone more experienced please correct me if I’m wrong.

 

I assumed it was since I had nitrate readings. After a water change, it was back to zero. I hope I wasn’t wrong in this assumption? The way I understood it, once I got nitrate readings, the cycle was complete. Someone more experienced please correct me if I’m wrong.

I hope someone comes along and clears this up. Maybe I have actually been cycled....

 

I hope someone comes along and clears this up. Maybe I have actually been cycled....

Hi, even with a mature cycled tank you can still get small spikes of ammonia which is why it's important to check water quality regularly, as long as it goes back to zero quickly or after a water change it's nothing to worry about .25 ammonia reading can even sometimes just be a misreading of the test.

 

What a relief! Thank you. MJohnson I hope this means your tank is cycled as well. I should mention that after my last betta died and I cleaned the tank, I fed it fish food and left it for a week. Who knows what the readings were during that time.

 

Glad that was cleared up! Cycling is still a bit confusing.