[Karebear13]

So I was thinking of buying a ten gallon tank since I was gonna spend almost as much on a three gallon. The only thing is I don't really want to cycle it because Im always going back to school then home and it would probably be a pain moving it every time from one place to another and breaking the cycle. If I wanted to get a ten gallon and not cycle it could I? I know it would be a ton of work doing all the water changes but I don't mind the extra work.

How often and how much would I have to do a water change?

 

[Olympia]

I still think you should take the time to cycle it!
The bacteria is mostly in the gravel and the filter cartridge, so just leave an inch of water above the gravel in the tank, and keep the filter cartridge in the old aquarium water.
I don't think that'd be much harder to move around

 

[tiffanini]

On http://nippyfish.net/bettas-101/all-about-water/water-changes/, she says that you should do add all of your water to your tank and test your water for ammonia everyday, until you see any ammonia level higher than 0 ppm. The number of days between when you first add the water (and fish) to the aquarium is the number of days you may go until the next water change. For example, my tank finally gets 0.25 ppm ammonia on the 8th day, then I would change my water at least every 7 days so there wouldn't be too much ammonia buildup.

 

[Karebear13]

I still think you should take the time to cycle it!
The bacteria is mostly in the gravel and the filter cartridge, so just leave an inch of water above the gravel in the tank, and keep the filter cartridge in the old aquarium water.
I don't think that'd be much harder to move around

Ive heard of different methods to cycle. Do you have a preference or somewhere you can guide me to cycle preferably the easiest way

 

[Olympia]

They were asking about water changes on an uncycled tank..

One betta in a ten gallon wouldn't produce a lot of ammonia anyways. Do you want tank mates? A fish-in cycle would take months probably. A fish less cycle can usually be done in a month I believe. For fishless, you have to be adding ammonia in, usually daily. I prefer fishless cause you can just put a ton of ammonia in and not worry about killing anything. Putting in fish food daily, or a dead frozen shrimp, or you can buy pure ammonia at hardware stores (the bottle should say aquarium safe ammonia I believe). I personally think it's totally possible to be moving a tank around even during cycling.

 

[Karebear13]

I would love some Cories or maybe some Kuhli loaches. Yeah I would rather do it the fishless way too Im too paranoid and scared to do it with the fish

 

[Olympia]

Both of those are especially sensitive to ammonia.
Avoid panda cories, they are the most stressable species, and it wouldn't be a good mix to have them being transported around.
Don't know about loaches. Larger cories would probably be hardy though.
You'd need sand for both too, but I think you could handle filling and emptying as long as you rinse it really well the first time.
Loaches would be a good choice if you have naturally soft water, cories could handle slightly harder water depending on species.
If you can, I'd test pH and hardness from the taps of both places you go back and forth from, if there's large differences you'll need an especially hardy species to cope with the changes..

 

[Karebear13]

Okay I will test out both water places before I make any decisions. My Dad just called me and said he bought me two tanks to chose from Oh surprises surprises...