How do I cycle my Tank faster?

[LukeJ]

I'm itching to buy a fish for my 28L Tank. But I'm waiting on my water to become safe. The staff in my local Pets at Home told me to cycle my tank with a hardy fish and strongly recommended i didn't do a fishless cycle.

Now i don't really want to harm a fish so how can i cycle my tank faster? I really don't want to wait 4 weeks!

Right now my water has been dechlorinated and has two plants from an established fish tank. One moss ball and some pond weed. So I figured that introduced some good bacteria even if it is a little? So will this speed up the process?
Also I have added some fish food to introduce some ammonia

Looking for general advice

Thanks in advance.

 

[sinibotia]

Pet store doesn't want you to do a fishless cycle because it means you buy ammonia from somewhere else instead of fish that will die and need to be replaced from them

Tetra safe start will allegedly cycle your tank quickly and works. But lots of things in fishkeeping take a lot of patience. So IMO I would take this time to reflect on the empty tank, and on waiting for the good stuff, you'll appreciate the fish more when you get them this way

 

[LukeJ]

Thanks again. What do you think of this? http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f12/fish-in-cycling-step-over-into-the-dark-side-176446.html

 

[sinibotia]

I think it's good! I recommend that article for people who want to fish-in cycle. But fish-in cycling is a lot of work to do it right. And in a 28L it's really easy to have too much right off the bat. I have 9 tanks and I fishless cycled all of them, so I just recommend the method I personally use. You can use any method you like

 

[PB_Smith]

The best, easiest and most direct way to speed up the cycling process is by getting some gravel or filter media from a well established tank and then use that to seed your tank.


BUT while this will introduce the needed bacteria into your system, you still need to proceed slowly. Seeding the tank speeds it up but also cause the water quality to go bad more rapidly and drastically because rather than waiting for the different bacteria to make an appearance, they all are present and that means that you will encounter high ammonia, nitrite and nitrate concurrently, not consecutively as you would if it wasn't seeded.
This isn't a bad thing per se, you just need to be aware of it and be more diligent with water testing.
I have only ever done fish-in cycling, (except when I used urine as an ammonia source as a test, worked perfect, better than store bought ammonia) it just requires more care and attention at the beginning.