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My 5 yr old son wants to have a Betta again. Rather than getting a single male in the bowl we had the last one in, I am thinking of a 10g community tank for the Betta and a shoal of corys. We never used a filter on the bowl we kept our old Betta Bilbo in, nor did we worry about cycling or anything like that. We just cleaned the bowl, 100% WC pretty much weekly.

Does the 10g need to be cycled prior to adding the Betta or can he go through the cycling process? Does that harm him? If so, I will probably just cycle it with ammonia and/or food and filter media from my 20g.

Bilbo lived 3+ yrs in his 1g bowl but I now know he would've liked to have more room to roam. So I am thinking that the 10g would be fun for Ian to have a new Betta, and the corys are always fun.

Any suggestions?

Congratulatins in going for a bigger tank rather than the small bowl he will love all that extra space. If you can go as big as you can for him and this will give you more options of tank mates to choose from.
The new 10g tank will have to go through the cycling period. You can help this along with the some of filter media from your other tank. Which way you cycle is your choice, chemicals or fish. I prefer the fish method using Zebra Danios then transfering them to a bigger tank.
As far as a school of Corys I dont think that would be a good choice.

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Keith

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Schooling fish in 10g tanks is best left to experienced aquarists only and only with very small fish. The small cories that might be ok in a 10g are more sensitive to water quality. Although there are several people that successfully keep bettas and neon tetras together in rather small tanks but there aren't any cory species I'd suggest. Threadfins would be happy but again are very sensitive to water quality. Otos, snails, shrimp, and dwarf frogs are common tankmates for bettas in small tanks.

All tanks need cycled. Bettas are usually very hardy toward ammonia and nitrites as well as not adding much to the bioload so are often put into small uncycled tanks. Any ammonia or nitrites is at least somewhat stressful to all fish so while they can survive a cycle it's better to fishless cycle if possible. It will also allow you to add larger amounts of ammonia so the tank is capable of taking a full stock right from the start instead of having to slowly stock it to avoid mini cycles.

hmmm, Ian loves neons... So, perhaps we'll do a male Betta and a handful of Neons. That could be fun!

Thanks for the input! I am going to for the fishless cycle when we set this one up. I really went thru a lousy time cycling my first tank with the Tiger Barbs. I want to get the water quality up to snuff before I add fish this time. Plus, a 10g can be pretty fussy when it comes to water quality.

And of course, since we'll be putting a bunch of fish in this 10g, we'll have to get ANOTHER 10g to set up as our QT tank! That will be up and running prior to getting the 55g going, so I can QT my new fish for the 55g carefully.

Scott:

hang the new filter on your 20G, add some filter media from there for a 'jump start' and let it work on the 20g for a week (together with your regular filter). This way you will build up the bacterial colonies required for the new tank. See a thread by 'tankwatcher' either under technical tinkering or getting started.

good luck, it sounds there are plenty of taks in your future! /:'

So glad you said quarantine, I was just going to jump in and say please keep that betta isolated for a while. Going from a small jar to a filtered tank is likely to be a bit of a surprise to him, and anything he is carrying will get a change to stick its claws in. If you have the 1g bowl, you could use that

Good luck!

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

just remember the personality of bettas vary greatly. I've had some that were just fine with other fish, one that killed 6 cories in one night (saw him with the last one in his mouth shaking it when I turned the light on in the morning) and more recently one kill a school of 12 neons in one night (same thing, saw him with the last survivor in his mouth in the am)

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I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.
~ Mae West

wow, doey, that's pretty freaky on the merciless killing of sweet fish, lol wow!

I will QT the betta, Callatya, and I will definitely use my existing 20g to "season" the new filter and get everything in good shape before adding fish, no doubt!


This is why I love this website... I had read tankwatcher's thread, even commented on it... It's a good one!