Unfortunately, I'm afraid it takes a lot longer than a week to do the kind of fishless cycle that is much discussed and worked on in this forum. Adding fish after a week is actually what we like to call a classic "Fish-In" cycle, the virtual opposite of a "Fishless Cycle."
The article linked by ALEXF is our main working document for fishless cyclers. For newcomers (and Welcome to TFF, Andy!) I like to recommend looking up at the top of this "New to the Hobby" forum and noticing the pinned articles. Click on the Beginner Resource Center and then the Cycling Resource Center links. Then look for two articles by Miss Wiggle and AlienAnna. These help to set the stage for the RDD fishless article and help you start thinking about this "Nitrogen Cycle" topic that you may have never heard much about before.
As a newcomer who has stumbled across this great information resource, the TFF site, -before- getting fish, you could become one of the small subset of people in the hobby who can attempt to "do it right" the first time. The sad truth is that ammonia in even small amounts can permanently burn and damage the gills of any fish and limit its health for the rest of its life. Likewise, nitrites in even small amounts causes fish to suffocate, because the nitrites will grab sites in the blood that would normally be for oxygen. There is no quick fix for correctly preparing a good bio-filter, it takes time, and using fish to do it is either bad for the fish or very time-consuming for the fishkeeper, who must perform daily or more water changes.
~~waterdrop~~
/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...shless-Cycling/
