so this whole fishless cycling has not worked out for me. the ammonia spiked again to 1.0 ppm so i pretty much have to start over, but i figure i'll just get an old filter sponge & some gravel to seed it, then put him in right away. of course i'll watch the ammonia/nitrite closely for the first while he's in there. too bad i'll be leaving a little less than a week after i put him in there, so i'm hoping all goes smoothly. i don't have much time for complications. as far as being gone for 5 days, he should be fine with some sort of time-released food, shouldn't he?

is walter your betta?

when youre gone for 5 days... dont use a time released feeder....

just feed him right before you leave.. and he'll be okay without food...

i also have used a feeding pellet.. and that worked out... no cloudiness... i had an air bubbler in there.


lol what's ammonia and nitrite???? LOL jk.. i never worry about that with my bettas.. only with my 90 and 10 gal saltwater tanks

What size tank do you have him in? If it is less than a five gal I wouldn't bother trying to cycle it for a betta, if it is a large tank I'd try to get some bacteria to seed it with.
If it's small just do total water changes, with our 1 gal betta tank we changed the water once a week and he was fine.

it's a 5.5 gal. i saw it for about $10 a few months ago and got a sudden urge to spoil the little guy :) anyway, i have some gravel and an old filter sponge from a 20 gal tank i keep with my boyfriend over at his house. walter's been in his new home for almost 12 hours now...so far so good :) although i do believe he's lacking some muscle after sitting in a little bowl for over a year so he still hangs out at the top and doesn't swim around too much. unless, of course, food is present. hopefully he'll get some muscle strength/stamina and will be able to enjoy his space soon :) i'm also hoping that better water temperature/condition will help him look more like his old self (he still looks rather sickly...)