Don't rush. Give it a a little more time like 2 weeks, 3 on the safe side. You can use guppies as test subjects and also to accelerate the bacteria growth with their poo after 1 week. If the guppies stay alive at the week 3 mark, then it is safe for other fish. Just feed the guppies to some other fish or see if they get along with your betta. If it's a female, then no worries. If it's a male, see how it works out. Your betta may just stare and let the guppies do their business.
I did some reading and they say to squeeze the dirty fine media into the new tank ( 5 gallon) and that will instant cycle your tank cause it smaller and don't need that much bacteria. Right now that big circle filter media is take a bit of space. more advice would be great...i am going to get some ghost shrimp tomrrow so the bacteria wont starve.
Yes. Once you've got one well-cycled tank, you can quickly establish more tanks by simply moving filters or cycled filter media to another tank. I always keep a few spare sponge or box filters running in my more crowded tanks, so I can move them to new tanks when needed. I also run them in coolers when travelling several days with fish. Any animal that eats and poops, or any decaying protein (rotting fish food) will make ammonia for growing nitrifying bacteria.
I always use Tetra Safe Start when I dont have spare filters. It really does a good job. I took an completely new tank added the safe start and put in sensitive fish (dicrossus, apistos, etc.) in a few days. Other wise cycling requires several weeks and sacrificial fish. Its a good product for "spur of the moment" tank setups that cant wait.
I do as well, I also never change my sponges I still have some Poret type ones that are at least 15 years old. If you give them a good rinse, but don't go too wild with squeezing them, they should last pretty well eternally.I always keep a few spare sponge or box filters running in my more crowded tanks, so I can move them to new tanks when needed.
I tend to use fish and not shrimp because once I set a tank up, moved my fish, and everything but a few killies, the plants, shrimps, and crabs died. I think i got hit by some annoying bacteria... Funny thing though is that the gravel and filter fluffy stuff actually came from a tank I've had for a couple years.