Can An Unfiltered Container Still Cycle?

[LaVidaBoring]

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.

Are you kidding? I've never seen a betta in a *tank*--of any size--in any US pet or fish store. In the US, they always keep them in little teeny cups. Like the size of coffee cups.

In most large chain stores that sell fish in the US, you can pretty much bet that at least one third of the bettas in the cups will be dead or dying, and probably another third will have visible diseases. It's really heartbreaking.

 

[JoshuaA]

The point of larger water changes each day in a cycling tank is to prevent him being exposed to those water parameters. However what I was implying was your choice on taking smaller water changes rather than larger ones wasn't really as beneficial as it could be. An in a result still exposing your fish to those toxic compounds.

When you get a reading of 0.25 Ammonia keeping in mind if you do a 50% water change you are still going to be exposing the fish to 0.125ppm of Ammonia. So really you are in some sense "letting it sit in ammonia". On such a small tank there is really no excuse for not doing up to 90% changes.

You don't want to reduce your water change percentage because of plants. Plants will consume what they can and I can't remember the figure or even a rough estimate on how much Nitrate plants will consume but it's probably a lot less than you are currently thinking. You also need to remember water changing is NOT purely for removing Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate, it also allows you to remove dirt gathered in the gravel which can cause health issues or in future bad water quality. It allows you to remove all that fish poop and remove the crap from your filter.

I do sincerely hope you have a gravel vacuum, this will help you much more. 25% is kind of hard to entirely clean your gravel in one go as well and therefore 40/50% allows you to have a thorough clean. Of course you may think "What about the bacteria in the gravel?" In your cycled tank with the filter the vast majority probably 99.9% of your bacteria are housed in the filter where the flow of water is. Doing a deep gravel clean will not effect your tanks processing abilities and if at all it will be undetectable.

Anyway in response to your accusation of me being incorrect.

#1

Maybe I will start doing the 50% water changes daily, though, while he's still in the unfiltered 2.5 gallon container.

Implies you were doing under 50%, probably way under and therefore when you were changing the water you were still leaving them in high concentrations of ammonia and nitrite.

#2

At one point you did say you would change the water every other day, which is allowing the ammonia to build up for 2 days before replacing it. Also the whole bubble nest seems to point to the fact you did allow it to "build up" purely because you liked seeing him make a nest.

3#

I don't understand what point you're trying to get at, however throughout this discussion you have been rather resilient to perform large water changes. Initially it appeared that it was due to the fact he wouldn't do bubble nests until the 2nd day after a water change. Then it was because it was too stressful, then because you read somewhere else something else. My explanation to the plant problem is above.

 

[JoshuaA]

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.

Are you kidding? I've never seen a betta in a *tank*--of any size--in any US pet or fish store. In the US, they always keep them in little teeny cups. Like the size of coffee cups.

In most large chain stores that sell fish in the US, you can pretty much bet that at least one third of the bettas in the cups will be dead or dying, and probably another third will have visible diseases. It's really heartbreaking.

Never ever seen a Betta in such a small thing in the UK.

Remember this point though, When someone claims "I've got 20 years experience in the aquatic trade" think to yourself "Not necessarily good experience"

Anyway lets stop this bickering and get on with it. You've got it in your new 5.5 tank, from now on tell us the water stats and we can ensure this betta together, is kept in its optimal conditions.

My first advice is to slowly acclimatise it towards your tap water, the first week of the cycle with a fish in rather than artificially added ammonia is probably most crucial. After that you can relax somewhat.

 

[LaVidaBoring]

When you get a reading of 0.25 Ammonia keeping in mind if you do a 50% water change you are still going to be exposing the fish to 0.125ppm of Ammonia. So really you are in some sense "letting it sit in ammonia". On such a small tank there is really no excuse for not doing up to 90% changes.

Right, OK, so maybe I didn't clarify one important thing. When I got the reading of .25 ppm ammonia, I did a 100% water change immediately.

After I had gotten the ammonia to 0%, I was letting the ammonia build up over two days from 0 to a barely perceptible amount still far less than .25ppm going by my freshwater test kit's color chart. Then I did a 100% water change.

Plants will consume what they can and I can't remember the figure or even a rough estimate on how much Nitrate plants will consume but it's probably a lot less than you are currently thinking.

I read elsewhere that java fern (I have one) is a "nitrate hog". So how much nitrate should you keep around for plants? And how much nitrate is too much? Some places say 20ppm is the upper limit, one said 80ppm is the upper limit for bettas.

I do sincerely hope you have a gravel vacuum, this will help you much more. 25% is kind of hard to entirely clean your gravel in one go as well and therefore 40/50% allows you to have a thorough clean.

Yes, I have a gravel vacuum. How much stuff is going to build up in the gravel, though? He's just one fish plus two plants. Whenever I feed him, I scoop up all of the uneaten stuff right away, so it doesn't fall onto the bottom. Probably most of the waste on the bottom will be flecks coming off of the driftwood and dead plant roots. OK, well, I'll see how much water vacuuming I need to do to get all of the stuff out of the gravel.

I do worry about removing too much water for another reason though--I bought plant fertilizer tabs, which are supposed to last one month. If I keep removing that much water, won't most of the plant fertilizer go with it? My java fern is already turning a bit brown...I thought it might be nutrient deprived.

Implies you were doing under 50%, probably way under and therefore when you were changing the water you were still leaving them in high concentrations of ammonia and nitrite.

No, I meant doing 50% water changes every day assuming a baseline of 0ppm ammonia and nitrite.

At one point you did say you would change the water every other day, which is allowing the ammonia to build up for 2 days before replacing it.

Well, yes, but the ammonia only "built up" to a level that was very barely perceptible by the end of the 2nd day.

Also the whole bubble nest seems to point to the fact you did allow it to "build up" purely because you liked seeing him make a nest.

I have read in many, *many* places that a nest is a sign of the betta's good health. Yes, they can make nests while sick, but the sick bubble nests look different from the healthy ones (bubbles of many sizes rather than even-sized bubbles). I know someone disagreed with that assertion earlier in this thread, but about 80% of the stuff I've read re: bettas and bubble nests say that presence of bubble nest = happy betta. Which makes sense, because a betta won't get ready to spawn if it's seriously stressed out or ill.

I deduced that the betta got stressed out by the water change because he wasn't bubble nesting the night after I did one. He only did it after a full day of no water change.

I don't understand what point you're trying to get at, however throughout this discussion you have been rather resilient to perform large water changes. Initially it appeared that it was due to the fact he wouldn't do bubble nests until the 2nd day after a water change.

You mean "resistant to perform large water changes", not "resilient". And yes, because my observations told me that the fish didn't really like them/got a little stressed by them. Of course I had to do them--and I did 100% changes--when the water params were bad, but I was trying not to *overdo* them. And yes, I had a problem with chasing him around with the net to get him into the acclimation baggie that resulted in me tearing his fins a couple of times, which is another reason I was resistant.

Then it was because it was too stressful...

Right, I reasoned that doing them too often == stressing out fish more than absolutely necessary.

...then because you read somewhere else something else.

Well, that too. Everyone's got an opinion, right? I'm trying to get a range of opinions in the hope that the general consensus about something is right. I will say, you were the first person to mention that I didn't need to float him in a baggie if the water pH and temp were the same in the new water as in the old. I was thinking big water change necessitated baggie-acclimation cycle.

 

[JoshuaA]

Ok so you've clarified a few things which makes this much easier.

On the floating a bag thing, it really isn't necessary if you're transferring him to something with identical water parameters. Currently you are trying hard to match the pH and everything and it does sound like you have done well at matching it each time. Therefore the change will be minimal and would be almost as if he never left the tank. Now you have a cycled tank you won't need to remove him anyway.

You can always attribute the parameter changes to something along the lines of rainfall/flooding etc to their natural habitat and I believe a lot of people use that belief.

Floating the fish in a bag is usually for temperature adjusting, adding your own tank water into the bag over time helps as well though if its identical stats bar Ammonia and Nitrite it isn't going to make much difference.

Water changes are commonly accepted by people on this forum as less stressful than poor water conditions.

About Nitrate... the lower the better, I think for it to reach 80ppm would take a long time for just your Betta and by then you should of performed a water change anyway, I recently read it was around 5ppm of Nitrate consumed by plants per day. However it is all dependent on the amount of plants what plants and how much Ammonia is present. I have also read that plants prefer to take Ammonia rather than Nitrate.

I don't know about the fertiliser tablets and can't really say, although its the fish poop/missed fish food/dead plant bits you want to pick up with the gravel filter. Once you've got a nicely cycled tank which it sounds like you might have achieved you won't be "wasting" as much fertiliser. Although it is necessary to water change I do understand the concern of wastage.

The Java fern turning brown could be a number of things, I'm not that read up about plants to give much advice on it, although I would make sure its getting sufficient lighting for the right amount of time.

Have you ever thought about getting some Marimo moss balls? They're pretty funky and I picked up 7 for £5 which is maybe $7? They out compete algae and absorb some of the fish waste as a food source.

Finally...

I used the word resilient to describe my perception on your attitude to water changes, in that you were given some suggestions and advice and I thought you were about to do it! Then you replied with something to suggest you weren't going to. As if you were bouncing back or snapping back. There's a specific word to describe the use of a word like that but I never went further than GCSE for English haha.

 

[LaVidaBoring]

Thanks for the moss ball suggestion. Will look for those online and if no luck there, LFS.

 

[LaVidaBoring]

OK, so I got rid of my sulfuric acid/pH down by combining it wtih the ammonia I used to do the fishless cycling in order to neutralize both harsh chemicals.

Didn't end up having enough to neutralize all of the ammonia, though, so I breathed ammonia fumes for a while. Pew!


Then I went to LFS and bought some concentrated peat granules and a little mesh bag. Put the peat in my filter because supposedly this will soften the water and lower pH the natural way and gradually too.