easiest way to cycle a tank is with a dirty filter, 3 simple steps,
step one- a fill the aquarium with water, decorate and turn on filter (make sure to treat the water for chlorine if that’s what your tap water requires)
step 2- take dirty filter (the dirtier the better) and clean it out into new tank, water should very nice dark brown when finished, the more mulm you can get into the tanks water the better (get it really filthy, if you can see through it you didnt get enough mulm)
step 3- put in new fish (right away), in my case I normally set up a tank a day or 2 before buying new fish, so I put a few feeder goldfish into the tank to keep the water "healthy" without fish the newly added bacteria cultures will die off quite quickly.
the water will clear up VERY quickly, always crystal clear by the next morning, on a side note I find this process also speeds up the rate that any newly added sand settels as well.
ya should be fine if it's well water makes life much easier! You just dont want any chlorine in there, chlorine kills bacteria that's why they ad it to begin with , so well water will be a great choice,
and the other big part is having fish in there put them in just before or just after adding the mulm , no big difrence, the "dirty water" wont harm the fish. But without fish your missing a key part of a full "cycle", fish produce the watse that the bacteria need to feed on... i have never had to ad anything other then de-clor to a new tank...
Mulm = the dirt/slime that your getting out of the dirty filter... it's where all the benificial bacteria are built up, they break down the waste produced that the fish create, when your cycling a tank your basically slowly building up these colonies, so that they can keep the water parameters in check, bye dumping a pile of it out of a alreay established filter your loading the tank with these bacterial cultures, that will get sucked up by your filter, and make a new home, where they can break down your new fish waste!
K, well I don't own a dirty filter.. My question is on what to do w/ a brand new tank, brand new filter, etc.. nothing Im using in cycling my tank will be used/dirty.
