A few more questions about my aquarium and the bacteria cycle?

Question

I have a ton of questions about my new aquarium. If you own one, or can help me, please leave a comment. I really appreciate it.

I have a 2-gallon aquarium that has a betta and a snail in it. Just a day after setting it up it began to get cloudy and I found that it is just the bacteria cycle. Then the cloudiness cleared and I was left with clean looking water. But it smelled horrible. I have owned betta for years and they have never made the water cloudy and they have never made the water stink. I just cleaned the aquarium to start from scratch and I only have the betta in it this time. I thought the snail might be the problem, plus it crapped all over the place and it looked bad too. I read that the smell was the ammonia and that there were things to get rid of it but here are my questions.

Why did the aquarium go into the bacteria cycle?
My betta, before, never made the water cloudy. Why would it now? Is it the snail?
How do I get the trace of the smell out of the aquarium?

What causes the ammonia in the tank?
Is there any way to get rid of the ammonia easily other than chemicals?
What would you recommend, gravel or glass marbles/disks? And how would you clean them easily (I have tried a turkey baster and it dosent really work) .

Your answer to any or all of these questions would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

1) Why did the aquarium go into the bacteria cycle?
All tanks will cycle if there's bacteria present. And if you add fish or anything that "poops", there will be bacteria that's contained in the poop. There's even bacteria on fish food, on aquatic plants, and in the air. The bacteria go into a rapid "cycling" (where they reproduce more quickly) mode whenever there's an abundance of ammonia or nitrite, which they use as their energy source. Once there are enough bacteria that they are able to convert it all to nitrate (their waste product), the reproduction slows down because any additional bacteria "starve", and the water clears up. So it may have been the addition of a second "ammonia producer" (the snail) that caused this - especially if you were adding additional food for the snail to eat. Decomposing food also produces ammonia.

2) What causes the ammonia in the tank? Fish and snail wastes, decomposing food

3) Is there any way to get rid of the ammonia easily other than chemicals? If this is ammonia, the smell should go away on it's own as the bacteria convert it to nitrate. Until then, frequent small water changes will lower the concentration (and therefore the smell). Be sure the odor isn't caused by your water conditioner as well. There are some that I've used that smell worse than the ammonia!

4) What would you recommend, gravel or glass marbles/disks? Gravel. This is smaller and has a rougher (by comparison to glass) texture, so it allows more surface area for bacteria to colonize.

5) And how would you clean them easily (I have tried a turkey baster and it dosent really work)? Buy a small (mini) siphon to clean into the gravel or make one yourself with a plastic soda bottle and some tubing. This is the fastest and easiest way to get any feces and uneaten food out of the tank.

Answer 2

Basically you need to cycle the tank. This involves introducing ammonia (either by a fish, or by adding food to an empty tank. I presume you're doing a cycle with a fish, as you have your betta). You need to buy a testing kit to test for chemicals.

Basically your fish produces ammonia. Nitrites build up to deal with the increased ammonia. Nitrates build up to deal with the increased nitrites. You will experience 'spikes' in ammonia and nitrites, and once both ammonia and nitrites read zero, your cycling is done. This means there is a stable amount of all bacteria and it is safe for fishes.

Since you are cycling with a fish in the tank, and the spikes of ammonia and nitrite can be fatal, I'd suggest a 30% water change every two days for the duration of the cycle.

It should take about 4 weeks to cycle, but get a testing kit to check. Check all three once a day and record them.

Once you cycle the tank, you won't have any smell or cloudy problems :)

Answer 3

You need to research cycling an aquarium. There are many things that go into this.