Back to forum after years....general advice wanted

[tramca]

I've been absent from here for years, and have acquired a new tank so looking for advice.

A friend has given me their old redundant JAD JL380 tank. I think it works out at around 35 litres, so just over 7 gallons?

I'm planning on a single male Betta [ looking into tank mates]
I've cleaned tank out with warm water. there's a 50w heater, and a fluval 2.
I've added a piece of bog wood, which I have attached Java Moss, and an Anubia.

there are some "fake" moss balls also with black gravel.

So I've filled it with tap water, and switched everything on. I threw a small pinch of food in there.

I haven't added any purifiers or cycling chems so far. i tried looking at "fishless cycle" link but it didn't work.

excuse lack of punctuation etc, first time on a laptop in years too, usually use phone.

I pretty much would like to know is there anything I should do, and when can I introduce fish.

 

[FreshyFresh]

tramca, welcome back!!

By far the easiest way to setup a new tank, is with used bio filtration media out of an already established (and healthy) tank. If you have access to that, your off and running the easy way. Do you have a liquid test kit for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate? If so, you can do the fishless cycle by adding an ammonia source, keep your ammonia level at 3ppm or so and wait for the nitrite spike. I went that route ~4yrs ago when I got back into the hobby after almost 30yrs. It was painful and took 4-6 weeks to get it right. Now I just swap one of my used filters over to a new setup and it's off and running, producing nothing but nitrates.