currently I have two 5gl i'm attempting to cycle.. The 2 fish I want to eventually put in them are in about 3gl critter keepers waiting.
I also have a 2.5 and a 1.5(will upgrade soon.. the guy is still pretty small) which are not filtered and I do not mind doing the water changes that entail a non cycled, non filtered tank.
so my question is.. does anyone have a 5gl non filtered tank and how is it working out?? is it worth it? or should I keep trying to cycle the tank? (i'm not all that patient! lol)
also.. if I do end up taking off the filter how would I go by trying to save the small amount of BB that I did accumulate in the filter cartridge?
I don't have my 5.5 unfiltered but I would think it'd be the same as having a smaller unfiltered tank. It would however take a little longer for ammonia to build up since its a larger volume of water so if I were to have mine unfiltered I'd do 2 50% water changes per week with a good vacuuming. As for the filter media BB, I wouldn't even try to keep it unless you are planning to put it into another filter.
as for substrates.. how would I go with maintaining it? will I have to take it out and wash every so often??(gravel) my smaller tanks are bare bottom so i was leaning on going that way with the 5gl... I also have some ideas on how to modify silk plants to make it look pretty natural... I did come across "potted" aquatic plants in bare bottom tanks and driftwood with certain plants attached.
I would use a vacuum same as I would for a filtered tank whether I had substrate or a bare bottom. To me itd be a pain to have to dump everything in a 5g. I've been considering removing the filter on my 5.5 but I've been thinking of going to a sponge filter.
I have the Marina s10 filter with both and the cartridges come with carbon on the top section and ceramic media in the bottom section... (their own compartment) I took out the carbon and stuffed sponge into the cavity left behind because there was a thread on here about carbon becoming toxic after some time... freaked me out! lol
I have the azoo palm filter and I set it up with sponge and ceramic.. I had it on my 2.5gl which I feel was a mistake even tho i baffled the outflow.. so current was not strong. I took it off and currently have it running on a critter keeper till I decide what to do with it.. thinking about using it on a 3gl sometime in the future so was trying to get some BB going in it.
I'm still a novice in most of these procedures and am trying to find the best thing for these beautiful fishies! lol
I consider myself a newbie, only been doing it about a year so I'm always learning something new too. I listen to what others say & see what works best for my situation.
I have one. I find that if you do 100% water change every 5 days you will never see ammonia show. I've tested over and over and like clockwork day 5 0 ammonia and day 6 sees it show. Definitely would do 100% change weekly at least. As long as you keep up on the water changes and be careful with acclimation this seems like a good situation .This is just a temporary tank though until I'm done cycling my 10g.
I'm fine doing water changes .. kind of enjoy it.
I want mine to b a permanent..
So I think the plan I'm going with is making one of my tanks non filtered n barebottom.. ill b going to a fish store tomorrow and will look into some driftwood and plants I can anchor onto it.
I still plan on clycling the second one
Thx for the quick replies! =)
My 5 gallon gets a once weekly water change. My boy has been happy in there for several months with no problem, and that way I don't have to worry about there being a problem with the currents some filters cause.
I had a different result on the experiment I conducted on water quality-but this might be due to the fact that I don't need to use dechlorinating products with my well water. Some of the dechlorinator can cause skewed test results for various reason-among other things.
On the experiment with 5gal unfiltered without live plants-I found that 50% weekly with vacuum would maintain water quality, however, I recommend a 90-100% monthly in addition to the 50% weekly- as a safety measure to error on the side of caution, since sometimes a hobbyist may not be able to vacuum well or correctly or have a lot of decoration in the tank or overfeeding or poor quality food related-But with proper deep vacuuming, feeding of quality foods properly- the 100% shouldn't be needed-based on my non-scientific experiment, however, I did have a control tank.
I have found that too clean can sometimes be as bad as too dirty in some cases. Even in unfiltered tanks you need to maintain a balance-you have more going on than ammonia. You have both good and bad bacteria and by over cleaning you remove the slow colonizing good and this can allow the faster colonizing bad to take over-not to mention antibody development that is also important.
With the nitrogen cycle beneficial bacteria-these bacteria are self limiting-you can only colonize enough based on food supply, oxygen and surface area. When one of these are missing or limited they die and/or see spikes.
For example-we fishless cycle so that we can safely stock the community tank once the nitrogen cycle is established-If the only stocking in the tank will be a single Betta and we fishless cycled for-lets say 10 fish...all that extra BB with start to consume itself for food. Without a filter-will limit dissolved oxygen and in smaller tank you have limited surface area for the sticky BB to adhere to and colonize-This is over simplified-its more complex than that....but....hopefully you get the point...Read my Fish-in Betta specific cycling and water change recommendation for more information.
I have a 10g unfiltered with 2 bettas in it, snails and a ton of live plants (about 30+ stalks of different species with floaters)... I do weekly 50% with siphon - haven't needed to do a 100%.
A cycled tank (or a NPT) will always provide consistently cleaner, less toxic water than a non-filtered tank, regardless of the frequency of water changes. Even with an established tank you still have to do a weekly water change to remove nitrate, TDSs and DOCs.
Cycling a tank is not for the convenience of the keeper, but for the health and safety of the fish.
I have a 5 gallon unfiltered tank. I do 50-75% water changes 1X a week and a 90% once a month. Everytime I put a filter in his tank, he freaks out so I gave up. I also have had 10G's unfiltered.
I have a 5 gallon unfiltered tank. I do 50-75% water changes 1X a week and a 90% once a month. Everytime I put a filter in his tank, he freaks out so I gave up
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