Switching Tanks and Starting Over

[I see fire.]

Hello!

So previously I had five Bettas (three males in their own seperate 5 gallon tanks and two females in a divided 10 gallon). Several months previously, my Feathertail male passed away and I feel that is mostly my fault, as I didn't know about their genetic makeup and the health risks they can have.

A few months later, I got another male from someone who was looking to rehome a betta they rescued from an LFS. I believe he is a giant Feathertail, so I'm attempting to do better there. Any tips for his health or what he is, go ahead and leave down below.

Then last month, my "Wal-Mart" Crowntail male betta passed after about two years with me and then two weeks ago, my male Giant Plakat that had a damaged swim bladder prior to me buying him from Petco passed away as well.

So, because I had the extra tanks and have often read that Giants need 10 gallons compared to 5 gallons, I properly cleaned up the other two five gallons and the 10 gallon and switched the three of them. I'm worried that I may do something wrong, so I'm hoping to relearn everything from scratch essentially. I have already failed this of course because the tanks are not cycled properly now and everyone is in their setups. However, essentially what I did was put a bit of their old tank water in to hopefully help the process, as well as used the original tank water to clean the sponge filters. I've been adding stability as well, treating it as a new set up because - in a sense - it is. I've also been keeping a close eye on everyone to ensure that no one looks ill or unhealthy at all (though my Dumbo Ear sometimes looks that way because she is blind in the one eye - another Petco betta - and basically forces herself to go sideways in order to see whats on the ground or plants, etc.

Now then, basically what I need help with:

- First thing: How often should the water changes be?

• The five gallon with my Dumbo Ear Ava (who is the blind betta) has a 5 Gallon with one Nerite Snail. She has 2 or 3 Marimo, some Anubis, and some Java that I have gotten from my other plants.

• The 10 gallon has Kidaj, my assumed Giant Feathertail male. He has two Nerite Snails, some a water fern, Anubias, some Java, Water Sprite plant, a HUGE Marimo, and a weak carpet of Clover. He shares the tank with a Khuli Loach (I know they are supposed to be in groups but when I first got him 8 years ago, I didn't really know better and I fear I might overstock if I add more in).

• My Koi Plakat female named Invi is pretty much the same as the other two. She has a 5 gallon, with two Marimos, Water Fern, Java and Anubius. She shares the tank with two Nerite Snails but there is also an amount of pest snails that I've been working hard to get rid of (and apparantly the Assassin Snails dont want them).

Next thing, I'm not sure if Kidaj is havong issues with the water flow and with the Water Sprite plant. I trimmed it up because it had grown basically up and over, but he is still swimming into it. He often looks like he is stuck or trapped but I also want to make sure he isn't simply just resting on it. I'm planning to get him more Betta "Hammocks" that he can sit on. He also has two small sponge filters. Is this too much for a tank his size? Originally they were both in because of the divider and thought it looked nice, now I'm wondering if it is messing with him. And if he is a Feather/Rose/etc. then I really dont want the water flow to upset him. :/

Third, my clover carpet. I lost it originally a while ago when my bettas had velvet. A bit of it died and some survived but I would REALLY love to see it spread out more. With the loach, I know it probably isn't going to happen buuuut I can hope right? How can I get it to spread more?

Any other plants that you see in the pictures, I dont remember the names of them, especially the one in Invi's tank, which I would like to propogate and possibly put in the other tanks as well.

Any other bits of advice would be much appreciated.

 

[AmigoSpageeto]

If you cleaned the sponge filters off with old tank water and didnt let them sit around out of water before starting up the tanks again then they should still have a lot of beneficial bacteria in them. I would continue to test for ammonia. If it starts to rise then do water changes, but it sounds like you already have cycled sponge filters and you shouldn't have a problem there.

On the bright side bettas have a low bio load so if you did start from scratch keeping track of ammonia and doing water changes is not that hard with these fish.

 

[I see fire.]

I did take the filters out for a bit but I dont believe they dried up completely before I had placed them back into the tanks. I'm not sure how long they sat out for, I started around 3 and finished at 11, but to minimize the amount of time they would be outside the tanks (cause it was a bit chilly that day), I moved Ava over to her tank somewhere around 5, took a break and then put Invi into a critter keeper, so that when I finished the 10 gallon, I would just have to move Kidaj and then do some small work with the last tank since it wasnt too bad compared to the other two.

 

[AmigoSpageeto]

I did take the filters out for a bit but I dont believe they dried up completely before I had placed them back into the tanks. I'm not sure how long they sat out for, I started around 3 and finished at 11, but to minimize the amount of time they would be outside the tanks (cause it was a bit chilly that day), I moved Ava over to her tank somewhere around 5, took a break and then put Invi into a critter keeper, so that when I finished the 10 gallon, I would just have to move Kidaj and then do some small work with the last tank since it wasnt too bad compared to the other two.

Some of the bacteria probably died, but you should still be fine I was talking more like a week where they would get completely dried up. At this point just test your water daily and do water changes if need be, but you should be in good shape.