Can An Unfiltered Container Still Cycle?

[LaVidaBoring]

It seems like you're mind is set on what you want to do and I don't see any point further discussing water changes as you are siding with advice found elsewhere. Changing 50% of your water at a 0.25 concentration will end up with 0.125 concentration. This is still too much, you REALLY want it to be as close to 0 as possible for the fishes health.

But he hasn't had an ammonia concentration at .25ppm concentration since I discovered it had gone up that high if I waited three days. A reading on ammonia that high only came up for me twice. Before the mysterious disappearing ammonia problem started (and nitrites being formed), the ammonia reading coming up on the second day was *very slightly* greener than ammonia at 0. So I'm guessing it was going up to about .175 or less on the second day.

But lately ammonia has been coming up completely zero even on the second day. But I will still do the water changes, just going from a full water change every second day to a 50% water change every day. Just tested his water, btw, and ammonia is still coming up zero. But I will do the 50% water change. But his water hasn't had .25ppm ammonia since the second time I discovered that waiting more than two days to do a water change resulted in a reading that high. And both times I got that reading, I changed his water 100% immediately. I'm guessing that, because there had been a week or so before I started testing his water, he had maybe spent a total of 2-3 days cumulatively in ammonia readings that high. Although, of course, it's likely the ammonia had just built up to that level over the course of that time period, and wasn't that high for the entire 2-3 days.

I don't understand why someone wouldn't bother buying a filter after 3 years, it sounds like a lazy mans excuse and perhaps someone you shouldn't take advice from. Why wouldn't they just buy a £5 filter and have it done with an drop their water changes down to once a week.

I don't know, I don't know this person who kept that betta, just that using that water change schedule on an unfiltered but heated 2 gall bowl was enough to keep the betta alive for three years. Obviously, I'm not going that route.

Your fish however can adapt to high and low pH's very easily and over time your Betta would be able to adapt to the pH of your normal tap water and your fish would prefer a much more stable pH than you having to artificially adjust it.

Well, given that there's only two days between water changes, the pH doesn't fluctuate. I always test the pH of the current water and that of the water-to-be-used to make sure that the latter isn't different more than .2 of a pH reading (and ideally the same). So I'm not putting him through big pH fluctuations. I have driftwood in the tank I'm cycling and I've read that helps to soften water and lower pH, so I don't anticipate needing to add a lot of ph Down in the main tank. But I will test pH every day to make sure it's staying around 7. If it goes way up or down in one day, obviously I've got problems.

Furthermore for your fish-less cycle...

I actually think my cycle is done. I'm glad I skipped adding the ammonia for the last day and a half, because I think it was making too much nitrite for the bacteria to handle. Either that, or my nitrite-consuming bacteria just kicked into major high gear. This AM when I first posted I had 5ppm, right now I have 0. 0!

Dose 4ppm of Ammonia every 24 hours if on your test it shows 0ppm of Ammonia.

You want to have a high pH of around 8-8.4 for optimal bacterial growth with a temperature of about 26-29.

I had all that, but I read elsewhere you were supposed to cut the dose to 2ppm when you started getting nitrite readings. So I had done that over the last few days.

I think I just used too much ammonia to start with. Built up too many #40## chemicals, and maybe that actually inhibited the cycling bacteria.

Just under a month is not long for a fish-less cycle mine took about 40 days, and I had mature media donated to me.

Bacterial supplements won't help ESPECIALLY Nutrafin Cycle, if anything that appears to be counter productive.

Yeah, if I had it to do over again, I'd buy Tetra SafeStart, because people online say that is the only one that really works.

Finally, Beth recommends that based on a lot of experience and in a 2.5 gallon tank what's the difference is it to you between 25% and 50%~ It's a 2.5 gallon tank it will take maybe an extra 2 minutes to remove and add that extra water. It will be better in the long run. This however is assuming you have a filter currently which you don't.

No no, she was talking about my cycled and filtered tank, which is 5.5 gallons, not 2.5 gallons. The 2.5 gallon tank is just the temporary housing I have him in until the 5.5 gall cycles. I have read elsewhere to change 25% of the 5.5 gall tank once weekly. I guess I will also have to see how the water params shape up, but given that I want to keep some nitrates around to feed the many plants I've put in there, I don't want to take out too much water. I also put in the plant fertilizer dissolving tabs, so again, I'd rather not take out too much water and with it all of the plant nutrients.

I don't want to come across as hostile, however I feel like you're trying to avoid the increased "workload" some additional water changes present. Like I have said before, it's about your fishes welfare. Would you want to live in a warm soup of your own poop for long?

I understand, but then again I have to balance what you recommend vs. my own water readings and my fish's apparent happiness. If I can keep all water params healthy while changing 50% of the water per day and maybe 100% once a week, then obviously that is preferable to a full water change every day. Doing a 50% change would be, I think, a lot less stressful for him, and I wouldn't have to float him in a baggie to acclimate to the new water as I would with a 90% or 100% water change. Water changes are stressful for my fish, that much I have observed directly.

But at any rate, I think his days in his temporary housing are coming to an end, as I think my new tank is ready for him now.

 

[BethK]

If you have ammonia readings, a 25% water change will not have an effect on getting rid of the ammonia. You are best at changing 50- 70% on a regular basis to help clear these readings.

 

[JoshuaA]

If you are ensuring the water parameters are exactly the same he doesn't need to be floated, do all your chemical adding in a bucket of water and temperature matching there. Remove and place him in a bucket of old tank water until his tank is ready.

Tetra safe probably has a 20% chance of working and even then it doesn't give you that much of a bonus.

You can drop it to 3ppm not really 2ppm, if you keep it at 4ppm however you will maintain a very strong bacterial colony, after your nitrite is being processed you are suppose to return to the full dosage of 4ppm or so until you read 0.0 at 12 hours for a week.

However, if your Nitrite is being processed I think it will be better conditions for your betta anyway and you should perform a 100% water change on your cycled tank then add the betta by floating it. You can then slowly allow the betta to adjust to a more natural pH of your tap water. When you water change preferably the 40% beth suggests, you usually won't need to add pH down as the 40% will only shift it slighty, you also can keep the fish swimming in the tank when you change the water.

Finally once in the cycled tank I don't understand the purpose of forcing the pH down to 7. Ammonium is produced below 7 and in a perfectly cycling tank you don't need to worry about either as neither should be present!

 

[LaVidaBoring]

However, if your Nitrite is being processed I think it will be better conditions for your betta anyway and you should perform a 100% water change on your cycled tank then add the betta by floating it.

I did that late last night. He's in his new home now. I did about a 90-95% water change beforehand.

Finally once in the cycled tank I don't understand the purpose of forcing the pH down to 7. Ammonium is produced below 7 and in a perfectly cycling tank you don't need to worry about either as neither should be present!

Yeah, but everything I've read says that bettas prefer a pH of 6.8-7.0. It seems cruel to force him to adapt to a really high pH just because that is what my tap water is, especially when I have a chemical that quickly fixes that problem. Won't living in unnatural (to him) conditions like that over long periods of time shorten his life span or stress him out eventually?

 

[BethK]

Bettas are hardy fish, they can live in most pH levels. My sorority are in a pH level of 8,with no issues at all.

 

[JoshuaA]

Yeah, but everything I've read says that bettas prefer a pH of 6.8-7.0. It seems cruel to force him to adapt to a really high pH just because that is what my tap water is, especially when I have a chemical that quickly fixes that problem. Won't living in unnatural (to him) conditions like that over long periods of time shorten his life span or stress him out eventually?

Let me just highlight the word Chemical its not the best solution (pun intended). On the moral issue you're raising, it doesn't exist. If you were all that concerned you would taken him back to the shop until you were ready to house him properly.

Though since you didn't shows you are willing to put him through something, so changing his pH to the tap waters natural isn't cruel either. Nearly all of these commonly bred fish breeds can adapt to a new pH very well. Even Beth has proved it.

When you say "unnatural conditions" take a look does that look like a natural condition found in a small pond/puddle next to a rice field?

 

[LaVidaBoring]

If you were all that concerned you would taken him back to the shop until you were ready to house him properly.

Oh right, so he could have spent more several weeks in a little tiny cup without a heater or filter. I'm sure he would have loooooooved that.

Please, spare me your holier-than-thou indignation. He did just fine...he made bubble nests every other day so he obviously wasn't unhappy in my keeping when he lived in a 2.5 gallon container. He also never got sick even though his container was unfiltered, which I consider a triumph given that I've read a lot of bettas kept in bowls frequently get ich or fin rot or velvet.

LOL, if you're clutching your pearls about my alleged mistreatment of him, I'm sure you'd pass out if you met the owner of my LFS (which is tiny and non-chain). He recommends against fishless cycling and sells the "betta with houseplant in a vase" setup for people who want to keep their bettas in 1.5 gallon vases. He told me my betta would be happy in a mason jar as long as I fed him properly and changed the water.

 

[shelaghfishface]

sorry havent had time to read all of this thread, but if you are keeping it in an unfiltered tub, then why not just put it in the tank and do small water changes as and when ??? whats the diff?

 

[LaVidaBoring]

Let me just highlight the word Chemical its not the best solution (pun intended).

Yet you haven't made any good arguments in support of that statement. Keeping an aquarium requires adding chemicals to the water to remove the harmful compounds, fertilize plants, medicate fish, etc. So why it should be such a big deal to add one more chemical to lower pH is a mystery to me. Sounds like more of an emotional reaction on your part rather than a real argument.

Everything I've read says that the big problem is with rapid changes in pH, which aren't likely to happen as I carefully monitor all that stuff.

Still, given that this requires adding a chemical that costs me money, I might as well just use my bottle of pH Down until it gets close to running out--after all, what else am I going to do with a bottle of sulfuric acid?--and then gradually acclimate him back up to a high pH. The other poster (who has been very helpful, by the way, thank you) pointed out that her fish are doing fine at a really high pH, so maybe mine will too.

sorry havent had time to read all of this thread, but if you are keeping it in an unfiltered tub, then why not just put it in the tank and do small water changes as and when ??? whats the diff?

That thought had actually occurred to me, yes. But given that my larger tank recently did show signs of being in the latter end of the cycle, I decided just to wait it out.

I read that cycling with a fish--especially just 1 fish--would take a really looooong time. Cycling fishlessly is the much faster way to go, apparently. And it just seemed easier to change out 100% of 2.5 gallons of water every couple of days compared to doing an 80-90% change of 5.5 gallons of water every few days.

Also, I had bought the 2.5 aquarium about a week before I bought the 5.5 gall tank. Originally, I had planned on keeping him permanently in the 2.5 gallon tank and just cycling it with him in it. Then I was reading a lot about bettas online and the general consensus seemed to be that bettas did better in a larger tank. The general consensus also seemed to be that fishless cycling was much more humane and quick and even effective than cycling with a fish, contrary to what the LFS owner had told me. My betta is also pretty active, and the 2.5 gall tank just seemed very cramped with the filter, the heater, and the plant on the driftwood chunk that I have. He has much more horizontal space now to swim through in the larger tank.

I'm going to keep the 2.5 gall tank as a "hospital" tank.

 

[BethK]

Almond leafs lower pH levels and tbh, if your pH is between 6.5 and 8.5,then it's fine.

Just because wild (see I used wild and not splenden), live in shallow waters in the wild, it doesn't mean they would be happy in a tiny vase. It is a myth that 'bubblenests' mean that they are happy, it just simply means that they are ready to mate/spawn.

If anyone respects their bettas,they wouldn't put them in anything less than 5gals and would use a filter and heater in a planted tank

There is no need for backlashings, you have come on a site to ask for advice. It is your own will to take it or leave it x

 

[LaVidaBoring]

There is no need for backlashings, you have come on a site to ask for advice. It is your own will to take it or leave it x

Yeah, I asked for advice, not self-righteous indignation and aspersions cast upon my behavior. Especially given that the more I have read and learned, the more I have attempted to do right by my fish. Advice is welcome, the other is most definitely not welcome.

If anyone respects their bettas,they wouldn't put them in anything less than 5gals and would use a filter and heater in a planted tank.

And yet there are people posting on this very board who keep their bettas in 2.5 gall tanks and say their fish are doing fine. *Shrug* Heck, one lady on gardenweb.com kept a betta alive in a peace lily vase for 6 years. I agree that those aren't the ideal setups, but on the other hand....you can never say "never". Some bettas manage to survive and thrive even in less-than-ideal conditions.

 

[JoshuaA]

Sounds like more of an emotional reaction on your part rather than a real argument.

Sounds like you came here looking for advice you were getting ready to ignore or disprove.

Adding your pH down to drop the pH then having Nitrite > Nitrate and your bogwood will likely cause a big pH crash, something which will harm your fish. To try and keep a tank at a pH way off from what the standard tap water is harder than you think. Imagine leaving your tank for a week with out testing perhaps 2 weeks if you go on holiday. It could go either way crash or spike. It doesn't take much to break the balance and especially in a small tank. You will find many members on this forum do not use instant pH changing products with fish in the tank, they usually use things like crushed coral or bogwood to slowly change the pH.

So your pH crashes you have to do a water change or add pH up, You now have more products or you now have to water change more. Question is why don't you adjust your Betta sooner rather than later.

Edit: Medications and Treatments are different, they usually are necessary as opposed to messing around with the pH.

LOL, if you're clutching your pearls about my alleged mistreatment of him, I'm sure you'd pass out if you met the owner of my LFS (which is tiny and non-chain

The question is, if you knew the conditions were that bad. Why did you purchase your fish and possibly products from that store? After all you are contributing to that store continuing its particular business "practice". Was it perhaps to feel like you were "helping" the fish?

Finally, advice is given freely on this forum to any member wanting help to receive. Though with such a negative response to everything I don't see why we bother. I can probably predict you will come back with this, I only hope it is with something good.

If anyone respects their bettas,they wouldn't put them in anything less than 5gals and would use a filter and heater in a planted tank.

And yet there are people posting on this very board who keep their bettas in 2.5 gall tanks and say their fish are doing fine. *Shrug* Heck, one lady on gardenweb.com kept a betta alive in a peace lily vase for 6 years. I agree that those aren't the ideal setups, but on the other hand....you can never say "never". Some bettas manage to survive and thrive even in less-than-ideal conditions.

It appears you're still missing the point, What Beth said still stands. Just because someone else does it doesn't mean you should too does it? Some people are content on doing what they want to do. Our advice tries to help people do what's best for the fish.

I really don't see any point in further discussing your topic.

 

[LaVidaBoring]

Sounds like you came here looking for advice you were getting ready to ignore or disprove.

I came here not so much looking for advice as an answer to my question...you remember it, right? Can an unfiltered container cycle?

But some advice I would have used -- doing a 50% water change every day in a 2.5 gallon -- had I kept my fish in that container.

Adding your pH down to drop the pH then having Nitrite > Nitrate and your bogwood will likely cause a big pH crash, something which will harm your fish. To try and keep a tank at a pH way off from what the standard tap water is harder than you think. Imagine leaving your tank for a week with out testing perhaps 2 weeks if you go on holiday. It could go either way crash or spike. It doesn't take much to break the balance and especially in a small tank. You will find many members on this forum do not use instant pH changing products with fish in the tank, they usually use things like crushed coral or bogwood to slowly change the pH.

OK, now that actually sounds reasonable and makes sense. Thank you for the detailed explanation.

So your pH crashes you have to do a water change or add pH up, You now have more products or you now have to water change more. Question is why don't you adjust your Betta sooner rather than later.

So higher nitrates make the water go acidic? And how fast could this pH crash or spike occur, exactly? Is this something that could happen overnight, or would it be a gradual change? I ask because if the water tends to go acidic, then won't the new highly alkaline water I'm putting in, assuming I'm doing a 50% change, also change the pH suddenly?

The question is, if you knew the conditions were that bad. Why did you purchase your fish and possibly products from that store? After all you are contributing to that store continuing its particular business "practice". Was it perhaps to feel like you were "helping" the fish?

Look, I bought the fish, I took advice from the store owner. I had read stories of people who kept seemingly happy bettas in bowls and even in vases. Then as I got emotionally attached to my fish in particular and more curious about betta fish in general, I started reading more, especially on fish-related message boards like this. I read that the bettas surviving happily in bowls/vases was a rare phenomenon and that for every one betta who survived and thrived like this, many more died or got sick. So, as the weeks went on, I learned more about what I *should* be doing vs. what I was doing and what the LFS guy was telling me.

As to why I support the LFS--where else would I have gotten a fish from? I went to my local Petco but half of their bettas were dead out in the jars. At least LFS guy, even if he gives bad advice, keeps his bettas in better conditions. They are in the typical tiny cups, but they aren't diseased. Or dead.

And you have to understand, I've been going to his store a lot lately. I went and got the second tank, the freshwater test kit, the frozen bloodworms, the medications to have on hand just in case....so I've gotten to know more and more about this guy the more I've visited lately. I've told him various things I've read online, the type of things that posters here have said. He has been doing the aquarium thing for 20+ years and so his opinion on various matters (like fishless cycling) is kinda fixed, unfortunately.

Finally, advice is given freely on this forum to any member wanting help to receive. Though with such a negative response to everything I don't see why we bother. I can probably predict you will come back with this, I only hope it is with something good.

Advice is welcome, as I said. It's the self-righteous and judgemental tone and words in your posts that really don't help me or any other betta beginner. Remarks like "If you had really cared about him, you would have taken him back to the store until you had proper housing ready for him" are not offering advice. They are nasty remarks intended to put me down.

Not to mention you have repeatedly jumped to negative conclusions and made negative (and incorrect) assumptions based on what I said, which is quite irksome. You seem to have been looking for ways in which you could bash me some more with each post.

I'm trying to do the right thing by my fish, which is why I started reading more about bettas and betta keeping in the first place and visiting boards like this one. If I really didn't care about the critter, I woudn't have shelled out the oh, $200 or so I have already just to provide the best home and care possible for a $7.99 fish. And I would have kept him in a bowl or vase and just hoped that he made it, flushed him if he didn't, and kept trying out new fish for my vase to see if any of them could make it.

And in the future, when I get bettas from now on, I will buy from a place like bettysplendens.com or aquabid.com rather than the LFS. I didn't know things like that existed online before I bought my current fish, which is why I didn't use them earlier.

And I actually do want to support the LFS in a way, though, just because it's a non-chain store and, even if the guy isn't perfect, he does treat his fish better than Petco treats theirs.

PS: For non-US posters, Petco is a large chain pet and pet supply store.

 

[JoshuaA]

Nitrite/Nitrate is Acid, this will add to your already lower than normal pH as well as the bogwood I believe you said you had.

Ammonia is a base it will take your pH up.

assuming I'm doing a 50% change, also change the pH suddenly?

Exactly the reason you should adjust your fish to your tap water pH rather than an artificially adjusted pH. The shock really won't be as much as you won't have to faff around with. You should use your pH down from now on to slowly adjust your better to a higher pH and then eventually your current tap water.

$200 for a 5gallon tank + equipment sounds like you've been ripped, I would recommend purchasing from eBay from now on.

Not to mention you have repeatedly jumped to negative conclusions and made negative (and incorrect) assumptions based on what I said, which is quite irksome. You seem to have been looking for ways in which you could bash me some more with each post.

Negative is usually bad, usually bad for the fish. Am I suppose to be happy and supportive that you are not willing to perform large percentage water changes whilst your fish is suffering in a soup of toxic Ammonia and Nitrite.

Also please inform me of what incorrect assumptions I have made and therefore I will be able to have a better overview of the situation.

Edit:

US seems really bad for fish keeping Bettas in large stores. The UK has its problems but I've never seen a betta in anything so small in terms of water volume, I think a 10 gallon is the minimum I've ever seen one in store.

 

[LaVidaBoring]

$200 for a 5gallon tank + equipment sounds like you've been ripped, I would recommend purchasing from eBay from now on.

Tell me about it. Yes, I know I paid way more than I should have. But it's not just $200 for the tank plus equipment. This number includes the cost of the original 2.5 gallon kit, the new filter which everyone said was better than the one that came w/ the 2.5 gallon kit, and then the 5.5 gallon tank plus hood plus light plus heater plus all the meds (maracyn, maracyn2, antifungals, which are pricey at the LFS) and the test kits and the three types of pellets that the betta didn't like before I finally gave up and bought frozen bloodworms and daphnia, which is all I feed him now. Oh and don't forget the cost of the bacterial starters for the cycling, which I now know were wastes of money.

Negative is usually bad, usually bad for the fish. Am I suppose to be happy and supportive that you are not willing to perform large percentage water changes whilst your fish is suffering in a soup of toxic Ammonia and Nitrite.

I *was* performing regular large scale water changes, and I was monitoring the water parameters *every single #40## day*. Once I found out from reading online that I should be using a freshwater test kit to test these things, I went out and bought one. LFS owner told me changing the water once a week was enough. When I started testing water for myself and keeping track of these things, I found out he was wrong. I had been monitoring the pH and the ammonia parameters, plus the temp, which are the only things I thought I had to worry about when the fish was in an unfiltered container. On a whim I recently tested for nitrite, and then got a rather unpleasant surprise. Hence, my first post here, because I can't understand why and how I ended up with nitrite being produced in a 2.5 unfiltered tank.

You seem to have gotten it stuck in your head that I was letting my fish sit in water with .25ppm ammonia and 1ppm nitrite, which isn't true. I never let him sit in water with .25ppm ammonia. As soon as I saw those readings, I changed his water right away. I learned that I could go for two days before I got a trace of ammonia in the reading, which is why I started doing 100% water changes at that interval. And when I saw the 1ppm nitrite, I changed his water immediately too. I wasn't letting him sit in bad water.

And honestly, I'm learning more as I go along. I didn't know about these things when I first got the fish. So yes, I probably made a mistake in buying the fish before I really knew how to care for him properly, but I am now doing everything I can to care for him the right way. So yes, I might have let his water slip to less than optimal conditions before, but now I'm not.

I also explained why I didn't want to change his water every single day, because my observation was that doing that bothered the fish.

Also please inform me of what incorrect assumptions I have made and therefore I will be able to have a better overview of the situation.

#1 incorrect assumption: that I was leaving him in .25ppm ammonia water (and maybe 1ppm nitrite water) for long periods of time. When I got those readings, I changed his water immediately.

#2 incorrect assumption: that I was letting ammonia build up to that point on a regular basis. No, once I saw that it built up to that level and over what time interval, I immediately worked to make sure it wouldn't keep happening.

#3 incorrect assumption: that I objected to Beth's idea of doing a 40% water change every five days on a 2.5 gallon cycled tank, presumably because I'm lazy. No, I objected to the idea, or at least challenged the idea, that changing that much of the water in a *5.5 gallon* cycled tank that often was a good idea because of the nitrates I want to keep in the water for my plants. And because I had read elsewhere that 25% wc every week was a good schedule for a 5.5 gallon cycled tank. And also, Beth's later post makes me think she only prescribed that water change amount/schedule if I was continuing to have high ammonia readings. Which, knock on wood, I shouldn't keep having as the tank appears to be cycled.

Of course, I think I'm going to let my test kit and water parameters ultimately be my guide in terms of water change frequencies.