One thing that new tank owners can do to help is to make their own seed materials. I've done it for extra seed in case I have to completely clean a tank because of disease or death. And in 1case, when the city water had something in it that made my new fish in QT, die in two hours after a PWC. It was only one day that the water was toxic (not to humans) and I just happened to do a PWC in 2 of my tanks. The water killed 6 young Danio in the 10g QT and made an Angelfish and Gold Pleco violently ill. I was shocked when they made it through the night. But I had 25g of Bottled water to use instead of tap (emergency water), so I took everything out of the QT and rinsed the tank and everything in it, in clean fresh water. Filled it up with the Bottled water and put the 2 surviving fish in the QT to see if I could save them, I did.
But I also had to do the same with the 55g tank, there by destroying all the nitrAtes in it. But because I had my 5 gallon bucket that does nothing but grow nitrAtes with extra filter media and gravel I was able to cycle my tank in 5 days, instead of a month. The 10g Qt was way to small for the Pleco and Angelfish, the bio load was to much for the filter and even with twice a day PWC the Ammonia wouldn't stay below .25ppm. The fish had already been burned by the bad tap water. The last thing they needed was ammonia burns on top of it. So I needed to get them into a cycled tank fast. Waiting a month wasn't an option.
Anyone that wants to build a new tank can start the bucket for almost nothing. I got an old used 5g bucket, sterilized it. Then went Walmart and bought their cheapest heater. No way to change the temp, but who needs to on a bucket. Also got the cheapest 2-10g internal filter and a really cheap bag of gravel. Set it up under my cichlid tank, out of the way, fed it and just let it grow. As soon as it had nitrAtes I added spare filter media for each of my filters. So they sit there and grow more nitrAtes.
If you set it up before you set up your new tank, you will have NitrAtes ready for your new tank and it will cycle much quicker. Plus it's safer than using someone else's filter media, you know it's disease free.
It's a way to speed up the cycle process. The only real way I've found that works and doesn't cost a lot like the garbage they sell at FS, that doesn't do anything. And it's always available to you in an emergency.