There is a thread in the forum where members offered to give other members filter media laden with beneficial bacteria. If there is no donor near someone, they might ask their lfs, or contact someone at their local aquarium society for this kind of help. Many experienced aquarists are happy to help someone just starting out with the hobby.
I was sure someone would eventually mention cloning, but I totally forgot about our cycled media topic. Thanks for reminding me, as I have shipped mature media on a couple of occasions, as well as received a couple of cycled sponges for a quar situation with some expensive angels.
The floss I ship has been running in my tanks for 3 to 4 weeks. I usually just toss it when I change it, but I rotate the tank's maintenance so I always have a few with cycled floss. I ship it the same as fish, 1/3 water, 2/3 air, triple bagged. The bacteria will die back without an ammonia source, so I toss in some frozen bloodworms. During the 2 or 3 days when the media is being shipped, the bloodworms deteriorate, giving off ammonia. This usually works best in cooler weather, the same as BioSpira lasting considerably longer when refrigerated.
I got two sponge filters shipped in early April, no bloodworms or anything. Three days shipping, from upstate New York to Chicago. I got them in a week before the fish, and put them in a 10 gallon & added ammonia to bring it up to 4ppm. 24 hours later, 0ppm ammonia. These filters came from the breeder's setup, so there were no bacteria that could affect the new fish.
It only costs about $3 to UPSs a bag of floss, this is a cheap and effective way to avoid damage to fish, or weeks of boredom waiting for a tank to cycle. Granted, you can't fully stock a larger tank with about a baseball size hunk of floss, but you can add some fish, and stock slowly from that point, similar to immediately after the completion of a traditional cycle.
