Bit of a long backstory so bare with me!
A few months ago, I brought a betta male for my 64 litre tank. That tank has now been up for almost a year and has two solid shoals of 8 harlequin rasboras, 7 Cardinal tetras, a random dwarf rainbow fish (store wouldn’t accept a return) and an unknown amount of ottos (thought to be 2 but one may have perished).
Now, the betta was brought on a Friday as it was half term and he settled in rather nicely, wasn’t too bothered with the other fish and I was quite happy with him. I went to work, and on the Saturday too - still happy with him.
On the Saturday night, I went to my dad’s and left him in the more than capable hands of my mum. I came back on Sunday evening and she said she hadn’t been able to see my betta that morning when she went to feed them. All other fish were present but the betta had gone missing. I checked the tank, behind the filter, etc. And concluded that he had indeed disappeared.
So my thinking was that he had died of stress/poor care from the pet shop and had been eaten by the ottos, brutal but that’s nature for you. So the following Wednesday, having given him some time to reappear in case he had just been absent for a day or two, I went and brought a new betta.
I had just put the bag in the tank and started the temperature acclimation when I happened to look at the filter and lo and behold, who did I happen to see?! A rather beaten up original betta! (Now named Freddie the Filter Fish) I let him out of the filter and for a moment though he was dead however he began to swim around. He started to interact with the new Betta (unnamed still) and I knew I had a problem.
Freddie’s fins were so shredded I knew who would win if I were to put both in the tank together. So in lieu of anything better, I grabbed a jug, filled it with tank water, put Freddie into the jug with some water sprite and a card over the top. New betta was put into the tank and is still with us, quite happy. Freddie was my concern. I had to go to work and so had to leave him (hence the card over the top, didn’t want him to jump out and die that way) and so that night I borrowed a tank from my mum’s friend. It’s tiny, about 5 litres maybe total space but the filter takes up at least 1 litre which doesn’t leave a lot of room. However it would do for then until I could buy a proper tank.
I put some plants in, some moss, some water sprite and it’s grown quite well in there and Freddie has made an almost complete recovery as well as growing bigger overall and I knew it was too small. I had disagreements with my mum who thought it was unnecessary to get a bigger tank and I realised the only way to move forwards was to just buy a new tank.
The new tank is still a bit small at 17 litres however given it’s about 3x the size of the original, I wasn’t going to get away with much more. I also brought some rocks to make a little shelter for Freddie and a new bunch of plant which is a ferny type so should provide a nice resting spot. I plan to set up the tank tomorrow so my question is, can I move some of the filter media from the filter in the tank he’s in into the new filter and, with the help of the plants, get away with not cycling it?
Sorry for the long story but felt the background was slightly needed. Thanks
Topic: New tank (Read 2628 times) 9 replies
December 11, 2012, 06:26:01 PM
