Cycling my 18 gallon

[OohFeeshy]

I need to wash the sand first so it will be at least next week before I can cycle. So, how should I cycle? I don't think I can buy ammonia, and I don't wan to ask mum in case she thinks I'm going to gas myself to death. Seriously, he'll probably say 'well its not exactly a safe thing to have in your bedroom is it?'. Soooo. Fishless it probably is. Unless there are some fish I can cycle with that I can remove to an 11 litre tank when done? EG, an easy to breed tetra that I can buy the 11 litre for fry then when they get to much remove the sex with the smallest amount mebbe? I can probably get a bit bigger than 11 litre for that.

If I go fishless- I will use gravel and filter media from my betta tank. Are there more bacteria in the gravel or filter media? Whichever has less I will use to seed my 18 gallon. Gravel would be more convenient, I wanted to change my gravel anyway .
So choices, choices, choices. If I didn't think pehaps a whole 18 gallon would freak a betta out, I'd use it as an excuse for another betta Or even two if I made a cheap divider.....

 

[Raechal]

I believe the gravel as the least bacteria and the filter media has more, unless you are using an UGF filter the gravel may have more bacteria. Anyway I filled a sock with gravel from my 29 gallon to kickstart my fishless cycle in my 120 gallon.

An 18 gallon would look cool with like 5 bettas in it! All divided by dividers of course, but then you could put plants up against the dividers to hide them so it would look like you have 5 males in one tank.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Nah.... The bettas would only be for cycling although it would be a bit mean, wouldn't it. But I'm getting...

2 gouramis (not sure on type yet)
6 black widow tetras (if I can find any)
3 cories (probably bronze but pygmy if I can find them)

Any mebbe some ghost shrimp. I'm not too bothered if they become luch though. Or an ADF. Or I might replace the cories with khuli loaches.... Fine, I'm not too sure.

 

[Raechal]

Nah.... The bettas would only be for cycling although it would be a bit mean, wouldn't it. But I'm getting...

2 gouramis (not sure on type yet)
6 black widow tetras (if I can find any)
3 cories (probably bronze but pygmy if I can find them)

Any mebbe some ghost shrimp. I'm not too bothered if they become luch though. Or an ADF. Or I might replace the cories with khuli loaches.... Fine, I'm not too sure.

if you were to get pygmy cories I would get more like 5-6 instead of 3 since they are smaller. Gouramis are good, they're one of my favorite tropicals.

I have a few ghost shrimp in the 10 gallon in the living room with a male betta in it as well. They seem to do fine but I think he has killed a few, out of 5 we only have 2 left. I've never seen him flare at them or even pay attention to them so I don't know if they just died or if he killed them. 2 of them died and they were just curled up and white and the other one was white and missing it's head. It wasn't a molting either, the actual shrimp. I wasn't too worried about it because they were 30 cents each and I even found them cheaper at 10 cents a piece at another LFS.

 

[OohFeeshy]

I meant to put more if they were pygmies It will be well planted, I can get verrry cheap vallis (straight and twisted for 40p each) and other stuff. I will ask... Sunday? about whether I can get new bulbs for my light, i can't be bothered to go and look at the make.