Cycling a small tank

Its been a while since I've been here as I've taken a small break from fish. I still have my 10 gallon tank with my goldfish. I'm a bad person and have not set up a bigger tank for him (we simply don't have the money now that we are living in our own place), though I have plans to set him up in something larger (not exactly a tank though)

My question today is can you cycle a 2.5 gallon tank. I work in a call center and I want to have a betta fish at work. I have a 2.5 gallon tank available, but I would not be able to run a filter in it.

I was wondering if anyone had any success cycling such a small tank.

ya, i did the same thing with a 1 gallon, a betta will be so happy

take about 1 quart (0.25g) of "dirty water" from your main tank's substrate and put it the new tank you want to set up. fill the rest with clean water (2.25g).

set this up and youd should be able to do an "instant go". if a betta is the only thing your gna keep in that tank you will be fine.

after that perform weekly water changes of about 1 gallon if youre not do any filtration

although many hobbyists will say that bettas do not require cycled water. i dont see how the method i described could hurt. unless your main tank is unhealthy in some manner

The problem with old tank water or tank water in general is the water stops cycling through your BB. The organics left in the water break down and become ammonia again. Fresh water is always best. Shipping fish always goes better with fresh water. I always transport fish with new water. If your not running a filter you might as well just use new water and change it regularly.

id considered youd get a spike of ammonia at first. but i dont see how its much different than fishless cycling? at least here you get some BB from the brown water collected from established substrate. youd get a large die off of BB over the first week, but with regular water changes one would reach an equilibrium.

or am i just thinking of a quick start to a Filtered setup, and not taking into consideration this a filterless system? lol i havent kept a "betta bowl" since i was a clueless teenager. i used to use untreated tap, and do thorough 100% water changes. i even cleaned stuff with hot water.

With a uncycled filtered setup yes it would be a spike and a drop. Filterless is just gonna make him have to change that old tank water out. Thats why you should just start with nil water.

Thanks I am purchasing a small betta tank setup for my niece. So I will use this information to teach her. Again thanks

a small nano hob filter take out the carbon pad. put some bio media out of a established tank in to a small panty hose tie a knot to it in a filter. then you could get some paint substrate, and some fast growing stem plants, and plant them, and then get a sprial compact 8-13 w bulb, and a clamp on flood light. there you got a aquarium.

Flippercon wrote:

With a uncycled filtered setup yes it would be a spike and a drop. Filterless is just gonna make him have to change that old tank water out. Thats why you should just start with nil water.

i see. my mistake, i was thinking too hard about filterless set-ups. doing 100% changes on bowls with clean water, made increasingly logical sense since ive slept on the thought. seeing as how many people say bettas' do not need cycled water, ring ever more true.

what i described with adding "dirty" water is only ideal for filtered set-ups.