Is my tank cycled ?

kwi said:

Has you ever had an indication for ammonia?
If so how much?
Have you ever had a reding for nitrite?
Again how much?

As a tank cycles bacteria eats ammonia and multiplies.
This bacteria produces nitrite, another bacteria eats the nitrite and multiplies, but not as fast as the ammonia eating bacteria, so nitrites will actually reach a peak before coming down again.
You know if you are fully cycled when you can add 3ppm ammonia to the tank and then ammonia and nitrites read nil after 24 hours. Don't try this if you have fish in the water.
Ammonia is scarce at the moment but I found a bottle of Dr Tims on eBay, paid 3 times the going rate but I got it.

Safestart doesn't contain ammonia, otherwise all the bacteria would have eaten it, multiplied, then suffocated after using up all the oxygen in the bottle.

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Emma and the angelfishes said:

Ye so have had a reading of 3ppm ammonia the other day but it was on a test strip that was around two years old but I did a 85% water change anyway

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Ch4rlie said:

Please read what I have suggested properly along with the cycling article otherwise you will have issues with your betta if you add him to the tank next week without doing anything else.

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kwi said:

Did you have fish in the tank?

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Ch4rlie said:

You can transfer some of your established filter media, no more than 25% max of sponge media and a small amount of ceramic noodles/bio balls to the betta tank filter, or if it’s a sponge filter tie the sponge media from established media around the new sponge media with thread or elastic band, this will pretty much instantly cycle the betta tank.

Even just small handful of substrate from established tank to the betta tank will help as well.

One or both of these methods will have some of the bb you need and will spread all around the tank and filter quickly.

I completely forgot you had other tanks

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Ch4rlie said:

You can transfer some of your established filter media, no more than 25% max of sponge media and a small amount of ceramic noodles/bio balls to the betta tank filter, or if it’s a sponge filter tie the sponge media from established media around the new sponge media with thread or elastic band, this will pretty much instantly cycle the betta tank.

Even just small handful of substrate from established tank to the betta tank will help as well.

One or both of these methods will have some of the bb you need and will spread all around the tank and filter quickly.

I completely forgot you had other tanks

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Ch4rlie said:

Am not sure what that is, not seen anything quite like that before. Think might just be a type of algae.

Looks like it will wipe off and that’s what I would do, simply clean it off and hope that will sort that.

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essjay said:

The photos look like a male and female betta - is that what they are and are they in the same tank? If they are you need to separate them asap. They should never be kept together except briefly during spawning, and even then a close watch has to be kept on them.

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