Ways to get established seeding material to help cycle my tank?

[Artifact]

I have read in many cycling guides that seeding material from established aquariums can be extremely helpful, and that the bottled bacteria often sold doesn't work as it's not temperature controlled through the entire shipping and stocking process and could be held in near freezing and boiling temperatures as it's not treated as live.



I don't know anyone locally that owns a freshwater aquarium, and I haven't been able to find any sort of local group on facebook for freshwater aquarium keepers (the only one I found is exclusively saltwater). There's also a lack of real "local fish stores", just petsmart and petco. The nearest one I can find about an hour away is closed due to Covid.



Is there any service, group, or individual that could mail a wet section of filter material or other such things to help seed a new tank? I would be willing to pay shipping but I don't know how to go about finding something like that.

 

[TMaier]

Do you have a neighborhood Facebook group? I posted on mine a few weeks back looking for fresh mulberry leaves for my shrimp. I got lucky! Turns out the family also has a daughter with an aquarium who wanted to try live plants. So I gave her some after I did a bit of aquascaping maintenance. Or perhaps Craigslist to connect with someone.

It may not pan out but it’s worth a try.