The Cult of the Cool Mac: Made with 100% USDA real meat!

I got a new betta this weekend.

'Took advantage of the timing and cleaned my Pleco's 12-gallon aquarium, putting about a half gallon of the waste water into the new 2.5 gallon tank for the betta. Gravel on the bottom and a submerged sponge-based filter system should provide lots of surface area for bacteria to grow.

For those who don't keep fish: The waste water introduces friendly bacteria into the tank in (hopefully) sufficient quantity (and with sufficient food) to kickstart the biological cycle that keeps the fish from dying a horrible death by drowning in its own waste. Read about it here: WIKIPEDIA: Nitrogen Cycle.

5 days into it, ammonia nitrates and nitrites are still reading zero. No signs of stress in the fish. I'm not calling it yet. Sometimes these things reach a certain point where the waste suddenly overwhelms the capacity of the biological filter so I'll be monitoring the tank closely for another two weeks or so. Still, I usually see a spike in nitrates around day 3 so this is very promising.