# Cycling with bristlenose + breeding tank conditioning



## Mew_chan (Jan 28, 2009)

Hello its me again 
My question has several parts to it:
1. is it ok to use a bristlenosed catfish to cycle a tank? adding a few hengali rasboras eventually? 
2. if I want to breed bettas what do I do about conditioning/cycling the tank to breed them. 
3. adding female betta straight to male to mate and prevent her geting egg bound...

What I want to know is is it ok to slowly cycle a tank starting with a bristlenosed cat fish and then add a few hengeli rasboras? or will this make the tank dirty and unsuitable to breed in... eventually.... might not even use it to breed... honestly I have not read anywhere about how to condition filters/tanks for breeding the fish... I might not even end up breeding them and just leave my male in the old tank and put my female in the new tank with the fish in my current tank divided between the 2 which is what I suggested above would achieve. In the old tank I have: 1 betta, 2 bristlenosed catfish & 7 hengali rasboras. 

BTW I wasnt really sure if this should go into the betta forum or not since I kinda wanted to get an answer more about the cycling of the tank then the breeding of the bettas (which I have already got a heap of info on) I want to get some advice from people who have conditioned tanks/filters for breeding any type of fish.

I eventually want to attempt breeding my 2 siamese fighting fish in the new 5.5 gallon tank (27litre) tank... and everything I have read talks about needing a filter but my only other filter is attached to my current tank and is brand new... I dont want to use my old one... but will the tank be suseptable to disease if i were to cycle the tank and then simply remove the cycling fish and place in my fighters? Im a bit paranoid about the other tank after the death of my danios and really dont wanna kill either of my bettas...(see first link below for details)

I only just got the female who is full of eggs from being so close to the males in the store... I dont want her to get egg bound, and mating might be the the best way to make sure of that even if I dont keep the fry... besides might be fun to let them try as practice... I do know the females will probably deal with the eggs if no mating takes place... but just in case....

Should I cycle the tank fully... then clean out the tank and simply re attach the filter to breed them? or maybe even let her into the old tank with my other fish in it...and keep a close eye on them... they both are showing signs of wanting to mate...


Links contain alot more infomation about my 2 tanks... basic infor like size, water conditions etc can be found in one or both...
About the death of my Zebra Danios in the new tank:
http://www.fishforums.com/forum/beginner-freshwater/23165-what-killed-my-new-fish.html


My first tank... and where my bristlenose will come from and 4 hengeli rasboras:
http://www.fishforums.com/forum/beginner-freshwater/22998-new-tank-advice-betta-tetras-bristlenoses.html


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