I intend on fishless cycling, it's just that since I set the tank up on monday/tuesday I have been busy with work so will only get chance to start anything after the weekend. I have read quite a bit on fishless cycling but I need a bit of time to really digest all the information to make sure I don't mess it all up!
What I mean is, once the tank is finally ready to add some fish, my friend advised on Danios first as they are quite hardy and to add slowly, ie a small batch of new fish every 2-3 weeks, does this sound right?
Yes, my son and I have done exactly the same thing you are setting out to do. We have done it over this past year and I will be glad to try and look in on your thread when I can and share what we've learned. We started with danios and rasboras and I heartily agree that these are wonderful as starters after the fishless cycle have fully completed. In our case, we found a fishless cycle to take 3 months, which was a long time, but we had unusually soft water, causing the pH to crash and the cycle to stall several times. That can be avoided. Some fishless cycles (without mature media) can be as fast as 3 weeks, we've seen here on TFF. You are extremely wise to be pausing and learning and to be planning a fishless cycle.
What type of test kit did you get exactly? Many of us like the API Freshwater Master Test Kit, the one I use, but many also use the Nutrafin, RedSea and Salifert ones with good success. You will need a logbook and possibly suggestions on what to record on a regular basis. You will need a couple of syringes with measuring marks from the drugstore, in addition to your pure ammonia as I'm sure you've been reading about.
The RDD article (written by rdd1952) is our working document (the Add&Wait method is by far the most used) but the other articles about the Nitrogen Cycle are important and fascinating and I was successfully able to get my son involved in learning these things with me. There are also some charts on wikipedia, although they still probably have inaccuracies about the bacterial species involved in the process.
One area that is not talked about much is that sometimes it helps to learn more about the physical filters themselves and certainly the media, prior to starting a fishless cycle. Often the manufacturers will recommend a system that helps them sell frequent replacement "cartridges" of media and it turns out that most of us hobbyists do not like these and in fact often make changes to our media choices prior to starting the fishless cycle. Specifically, carbon (aka charcoal or activated charcoal) is often included and is not really needed or optimal unless you have a very specific special need for it. In the modern hobby, there are now ceramic rings and pebbles, which, along with sponges, are the media of choice for maximum biological filtration growth.
Glad you are already reading. Reading other beginners threads is very entertaining and instructive. Searching and reading older threads can be even more instructive. But of course the pinned articles contain many essentials and we usually recommend them right away. Miss Wiggle has a very good overall setup article out there somewhere.
Welcome to TFF!
~~waterdrop~~
ps. helterskelter made the following comment:
"This is incorrect, ammonia is produces slowly with out a scourse, adding fish, foods or ammonia do help and speeds it up but it's not needed if you want to take your time."
I probably am misunderstanding helterskelter's thought, but as the statement stands it seems like it might be confusing for beginners.
A new tank with a new filter and no mature media, no plants, no fish, no food going in and no ammonia being added is a pretty stark environment, even for bacteria. I would not expect it to accumulate any significant ammonia for a long, long time, perhaps until dust and bugs settled on the surface or something. Perhaps I'm wrong and would be surprised! Modern fishless cycling takes enough patience as is, hard to imagine the process would move along at all without the pure ammonia.
