Cycling a 3 gallon tank

[Oldfishlady]

No matter what size tank you have your Betta...it will have byproducts and you will need to make a water change...regardless if you are in the process of cycling the filtered tank or not...Especially when it will house just a Betta...

You cycle to establish beneficial bacteria that can help keep the water safe between water changes by establishing the bio-filter. Pre-cycling the tank was intended for tanks that you want to fully stock with more than one fish. When its for a single Betta you can safely establish the nitrogen cycle with the healthy Betta-provided that you make the needed water changes.
Remembering that the test products (if used) only test at a ppm (parts per million) level and so you will always have some ammonia in the system to help establish the nitrogen cycle and to feed the beneficial bacteria.

To answer your question...Yes, you can setup the tank with dechlorinated water with at least 76F water-properly acclimate the Betta-Net and add to the tank. In a 3gal filtered tank-water changes of twice weekly regardless of nitrogen cycle stage-due to the beneficial bacteria being self limited.

[labloverl]

I hope I'm not hijacking, but I have a question on this subject. So if I set up a new 3 gallon, put the water in and filter (some kind of internal power filter I think) and acclimated the betta, I would make the 2 50% changes each week. During this time, it will eventually cycle, and all I would have to do is the 2 water changes mentioned before? If I didn't want it to cycle, I would do 1 50% water only and 1 100%. I would like it to cycle though (no live plants) but I wanted to make sure that just the 2 50%'s would keep the fish safe. That's probably confusing lol!

[Oldfishlady]

IMO/E based on experiments I have conducted-In a 3gal filtered tank- without live plants-stocked with a single Betta-Without a test kit on hand. Twice weekly water changes will maintain water quality...1-50% water only and 1-50% to include the substrate cleaning by vacuum or stir and dip method.

The filtered 3gal will cycle, however, due to the limiting factors of the beneficial bacteria the cycle may not be stable and twice weekly water changes are needed regardless of cycling stage/completeness.