Pour in the water onto a saucer until half full, remove saucer.....Aquascape and then finish topping up with water.
Right switch everything on. The tank will get cloudy yes. bubbles will form on the glass yes.
Leave everything for 1 week to 10 days (NO FISH).
Then do a 50% waterchange and wait one more week.
Bingo.. now your ready to advance... not before.
Huh? While I completely respect that lots of people have kept fish for longer than I have, I can't figure out what this is supposed to accomplish. I'm all for simplifying things for newbies: I'm kind of a research geek and personally enjoyed learning about the water chemistry stuff, but it made my husband's head spin, so I know we all view that kind of stuff differently. But not attempting to explain it, or worse yet, implying that understanding it all is unnecessary, isn't really going to benefit a new fishkeeper in the long run. 5 years down the road he'll decide to get a new filter, toss his old one, and wonder why the fish are dying.
Nicola, here's about the best I can simplify it for you:
Fish poo decomposes and turns into ammonia. Ammonia can kill fish. But over time, some "good" bacteria will build up that will "eat" the ammonia and produce something called NitrIte. But that's also toxic for fish. Eventually, even more good bacteria will build up that will eat the nitrIte, and leave you with something called NitrAte. That's not nearly as harmful to fish; we all have nitrate in our tanks. To keep the nitrate levels from getting too high, we do water changes to dilute it. (Most people change anywhere from 20% a week to 50% a week, usually.)
SO - you have a decision to make. You can put a few fish in your tank, and let them be the ones to produce ammonia (through their poo, or any decaying bits of food that remain in the tank), and thus get this whole "cycle" thing -- the build up of the good bacteria -- started. OR you can do it artificially. Put some ammonia (yep, just like you use to clean) straight into the tank, and then put fish in AFTER all the good bacteria have built up, so they won't be exposed to the ammonia and nitrite that are so harmful.
There are pros and cons to each method. In cycling WITH fish you don't have to wait weeks before you have fish to look at. But your fish could die from ammonia or nitrite poisoning. To avoid this, you have to do LOTS of water changes (sometimes one a day - or more). You also have chose something like danios that can are tough enough to live through the cycling process.
If you cycle without fish - by adding the ammonia yourself -- it doesn't matter how high the ammonia and nitrites get because there's no fish in your tank, so you're not doing a zillion water changes. The con is you'll be looking at an empty fishtank for a few weeks.
The stuff that came with your tank is designed to take the place of all this "cycling." Unfortunately, those products don't really work. And most people at the fish stores really don't understand the whole process, they just know that "here's this stuff that the tank manufacturer says they're supposed to recommend."
Right now, regardless of what method you chose to cycle your tank - fish or fishless you need two things: 1. a water test kit. Try the API Freshwater Master Test Kit. It's about $30 and it will last you a really long time AND give you really accurate results. 2. water conditioner. This removes chlorine/choloramine from your tap water.
Take a look at these two links. It will give you a little more info, and expand on what I said above.
http
/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=10099
http/www.fishforums.net/Fishless-Cycling-t113861.html
Good luck! Hope that helps!
