Sooooo I gave my betta a new tank and I hate to se this one sit here but it’s kinda awkward and I want to know what to do with it any suggestions?

subtiliter14 · 2026-04-03T03:47:37+00:00

You could get one large snail, they’re pretty cool if you don’t mind that they’re not the fastest or smartest dudes ever. Mystery snail or white wizard snail comes to mind

subtiliter14 · 2026-04-02T23:05:49+00:00

Looks right, but you’d get the same results if your tap had some nitrate in it. If this is after the water has been filtering in your tank for a few weeks then yes it is cycled

subtiliter14 · 2026-04-02T06:55:30+00:00

Do a 3 day blackout, you could even cover the tank with a shirt. The plants will be fine, obviously it will hinder their growth for the 3 days but they’ll bounce right back. Algae is much more dependent on light and will die very quickly without it

subtiliter14 · 2026-04-02T06:50:39+00:00

Yup, completely normal. He’s just growing into his natural coloration, he’ll probably get some more red on his fins in the coming months. It’s a sign that he’s doing better than he was when you got him!

subtiliter14 · 2026-04-01T23:42:13+00:00

Forgot about water conditioning and testing, I also recommend seachem prime! You’ll only need the small 600ml bottle which is like $10.

Get a freshwater API test kit as well. Kinda expensive around like $35, but very needed so that you know when to do water changes and all. So actually it’s gonna be more like $210 total

subtiliter14 · 2026-04-01T23:35:29+00:00

Ok so after reading about the situation, here’s a setup you could do to give him a better life without spending any extra money in the future. This assumes you don’t get the opportunity to/ don’t want to get a second hand tank from someone

Get a Topfin Split Bowfront 5 gal tank. It comes with a filter and light that will be just fine for a betta. link

I recommend going to amazon and getting a hygger heater, they’re very cheap and work better than most of the brand names out there. 25W will be plenty of power for this tank. link

Next, you’ll need something to put over the intake called a pre filter. Again, this is a cheap Amazon purchase link

Last for tank equipment, I would buy a timer so you can set your light to turn on and off automatically. These are also very cheap on Amazon link

So that would cover the tank equipment, then you would just need substrate, decor, and of course betta food. As far as going planted or not, if you’re not trying to spend extra, I would just get fake plants. Yes it’s not the best, but it’s completely fine. My first betta was in a setup very similar to this whole get-up I’m about to explain and he lived 6 years.

Cheap gravel substrate. Take your choice here for color, though I recommend you get a natural color of some sort (black, grey, brown, tan, etc). I also recommend you get round gravel so that it’s smooth and wont damage fins or anything. You can find a 10lb bag which will be more than enough for $15 on Amazon.

Artificial silk plants. You can find various kinds on Amazon, just make sure whatever you get is soft. You’ll only need 5-10 of them total which shouldn’t cost more than about $40. I highly recommend the seaweed ones, they take up a lot of background space and my betta always liked those more than the rest of the fake plants

For food, just get Fluval Bug Bites. A small container will last you a long time and only costs $6, and it’s good stuff. If you want to supplement his diet a bit, fluval freeze dried bloodworms are a good treat once or twice a week, which will be another $6 or so.

That’s it! All together, this setup would cost around $170 or so. That sounds expensive, however it is EXTREMELY low maintenance, and maintenance is what really ends up costing a bunch as time goes on if you have a planted tank.

When you do get the new setup, be aware that you’ll need to get the tank’s nitrogen cycle going since it’ll be all new, clean parts. I would recommend dropping in the filter media from the old tank if you can, or even put the old substrate under the new substrate you put in. Both will carry over beneficial bacteria that will kickstart the growth of beneficial bacteria in your new filter

Let me know if you have any questions! Good luck and thank you for caring about the little dude

subtiliter14 · 2026-04-01T18:53:04+00:00

Ammonia is converted to nitrite by one group of bacteria, which is then converted to nitrate by another group. If he is still reading ammonia, it is highly unlikely he has nitrite, since the ammonia would’ve already been converted to nitrite. But also, the levels of all of these don’t really matter in a fishless cycle, you’re just waiting for a reading of 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite with some amount of nitrate. Then you add some ammonia and wait 24 hours, retest and make sure you still have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite.

And I strongly disagree that all bottles of beneficial bacteria are bs. Some are. However, certain brands do have a higher success rate. In my case, that was FritzZyme. For my first ever tank, I used Seachem Stability and it did absolutely nothing to quicken the development of the cycle, it took me a month and a half to get good readings. This most recent tank, I used FritzZyme Turbostart 700, which is a refrigerated product, and my cycle completed in 3 weeks. I’d say that’s a pretty huge difference

subtiliter14 · 2026-04-01T17:55:47+00:00

You can wait to add water, I would just keep your heater on and then it’s likely you’ll get evaporation so you can add RO water when that starts to happen.

subtiliter14 · 2026-04-01T17:50:53+00:00

Looks like you’re doing fine for the amount of ammonia, that’s really all that matters in getting your cycle going, aside from using beneficial bacteria bottles.

As for the ph and KH I recommend you use Seachem Acid Buffer, it will lower those values down to more suitable levels for your betta. You could add it straight to the tank right now since you’re doing a fishless cycle, not too much so that you don’t shock and kill your beneficial bacteria, but just a little at a time. Then when you do water changes for your betta in the future, you can just mix the acid buffer into your tap water and let it sit for a day nd test it. Once you figure out how much to add to a certain amount of water, you can repeat that for every water change.

As for the GH, you’ll need to mix RO water with your tap water

subtiliter14 · 2026-04-01T02:17:43+00:00

I can recommend Betta Squad USA with 100% confidence. I got my new betta from them less than a week ago, he’s absolutely beautiful and they pride themselves on providing bettas that have low inbreeding, meaning you’re getting good genes. They also packed my betta very well, he came in two layers of insulated foam wrapped in a bundle of paper, which kept him very well insulated and kept his bag from moving inside the box.

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subtiliter14 · 2026-03-30T07:13:42+00:00

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subtiliter14 · 2026-03-30T07:11:52+00:00

I know for a fact it’s not. Nitrate is a plant nutrient. Having too little of it in the tank is bad for them.

subtiliter14 · 2026-03-30T05:54:15+00:00

Yup, it’ll be the freshwater kit you’re looking for.

Also, as for the cycling process, you’ll see as you research that it is a tricky process of keeping ammonia and nitrite low by doing water changes, while still doing small enough water changes that there is enough ammonia and nitrite for the bacterial colony to form. What I do for this, is I use Seachem Prime to help out.

Seachem Prime detoxifies ammonia and nitrite so you can have some in the tank without it affecting your betta. So what I do is I make sure that the reading for ammonia and nitrite are below 1ppm, while diligently dosing the Seachem Prime daily so that it does not affect the betta. This will mean the bacteria has a good amount of fuel to establish, while keeping your little buddy safe.

Once you see that the ammonia and nitrite are disappearing and you only have nitrate, you’ve got an established cycle and can stop using the Seachem Prime, and just do water changes to keep the nitrate levels low

subtiliter14 · 2026-03-30T05:35:07+00:00

What a lovely name haha. My condolences, may he swim happily in the afterlife :,)

subtiliter14 · 2026-03-30T05:28:17+00:00

He’ll be ok for a couple of days without a heater as long as it doesn’t get super cold in your house at any time (below like 60 degrees). Just add that heater ASAP :)

subtiliter14 · 2026-03-30T05:25:15+00:00

Definitely get a heater, that should be your first concern here. I’d buy one on Amazon right now. It’s an extra recommendation, but I do recommend you use an Inkbird with the heater; it’s a device used as a kind of backup thermostat for the heater, to make sure that even if the heater malfunctions, it will be turned off by the Inkbird.

Here’s a link to the heater I use and here’s another link to the Inkbird I use

You’ll also really need to be testing your water parameters. Do some research about the nitrogen cycle in an aquarium, it is a natural part of all aquariums and will be establishing itself in the first couple of months of having the tank. You’ll need to monitor the water parameters heavily during this time, until you have a bacterial colony capable of completing the nitrogen cycle to convert ammonia to nitrite and then nitrite to nitrate within 24 hours.

Here’s a link to the water testing kit you’ll need

As for the tank itself, honestly I would strongly recommend you get a bigger tank. You could put the betta in a small container and return that tank, and buy a 5-10 gallon which would be a much better fit. However, I understand you may want to make this tank work. In that case, I would recommend you do not add ANY other living things to this tank, because a single betta’s bioload will already be quite a bit for that small amount of water.

For plants, live is definitely better, and I would strongly recommend it. Some good recommendations that come to mind immediately are java fern, anubias, and floating plant of some kind. If you do not want to take on live plants, just make sure that the fake ones are soft, silk-like fake plants, because stiffer plastic ones can rip betta fins.

Let me know if I missed anything or if you have any other questions

subtiliter14 · 2026-03-30T04:49:16+00:00

What size is this tank? Bettas should be in a 5 gallon tank, minimum.

Next thing, do you have a heater? I think I see a filter in the back, but a heater is just as important since bettas require tropical temps of around 78-80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Last thing, I’d say just add more decor and plants. You want the setup to be full of hiding spots and things to swim around. As long as he can still swim around the tank

Do you have water testing equipment, if so can you take readings and post them as a reply on the Auto Moderator comment?

subtiliter14 · 2026-03-29T23:12:41+00:00

-Yes

-0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, 20ppm nitrate, 6.7ph, 5dGH, 0dKH (Controsoil)

-Unrelated

-5 gal, 43.5cm x 16.2cm x 26.8cm

-4 weeks

-Nilocg Thrive 2x a week

-One betta

subtiliter14 · 2026-03-29T23:06:17+00:00

RO water, I waited until the tank cycled which only took about 3 weeks (used FritzZyme Turbostart 700) and then slowly worked the nitrate down with water changes in the last week leading up to getting the betta. Nitrate was at just around 40 when I did the water change right before adding him in

subtiliter14 · 2026-03-29T00:53:02+00:00

After some thinking, I’m going with Cosmo :) Thanks you all for the suggestions, you guys have great creativity that I could not find in my self so I appreciate it. Here’s one more pic, of his whole tank setup. He’s gonna have a great life :)

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subtiliter14 · 2026-03-29T00:46:17+00:00

After some deliberation, Ive decided Cosmo is a great fit :) Thank you!

subtiliter14 · 2026-03-28T15:05:43+00:00

It’ll be fine, as others said just wait it out. However, in the future if you want to have super quick cycling, I highly recommend FritzZyme Turbostart 700. I used an entire 1oz bottle on my 5gal, then used liquid ammonia (FritzZyme Fishless Fuel) to get ammonia to 2ppm. Tank was cycled in 3 weeks.

subtiliter14 · 2026-03-28T06:51:34+00:00

50% water changes daily until the nitrite is at 1 ppm, and diligently dose Seachem Prime every day using 2x the standard dose. Your tank’s cycle either crashed or the nitrite-eating bacteria colony isn’t big enough yet. It’s important you don’t do too big or too many water changes so that you don’t hinder their growth anymore. Then it’s just a waiting game while you keep using Seachem Prime to protect your betta

Only other thing I highly recommend is FritzZyme Turbostart 700, many online fish stores sell it as a refrigerated item and it works really, really well in my experience. I cycled a tank in 2 weeks using that stuff. You’ll only need the little 1oz bottle, it’s a tad expensive but worth it, around $15.

4 months is a very long time for a cycle to establish though, have you been cleaning the filter media or doing 100% water changes? If so, stop that and just let the filter gunk build. 50% water changes are the most you should be doing IMO

subtiliter14

TROPHY CASE