Hi Dave and Viv,
I was reading through your thread again and realized that you are probably experiencing something that many of us members have experienced in the past. The assumption that the LFS is the place for advice dies hard. Its a very compelling feeling that the place that sells you fish and equipment must know a lot about the hobby and its also usually the only place for face to face conversation about the topic. In parallel with this, a web forum seems potentially random and possibly filled with people not to be trusted.
In your case I think you've been given advice to use a method where a "bacteria in a bottle" type product (the JBL) is supposed to be in the tank to "start the bacterial colonies" and that it shouldn't be diluted by water changes. When our forum advocates large water changes, this causes some conflict with what you've heard from the LFS and as a result you are ending up with actions that are a blend of the two types of advice. I probably haven't got this quite right, but anyway that's my attempt across the distances.
In my own case I can tell you it took the better part of a year before my skepticism about this forum finally broke down and I realized that the collective information and knowledge of the serious hobbyists here simply blew the doors off of the kinds of advice usually coming from stores and many other information sources. Over time I also realized that even when there are fairly knowledgeable LFS staff who are hobbyists themselves, they are often in a situation where they must bow to the business people in charge or they themselves have had to accept that bottles of potions need to "move" from the store shelves to keep the cash flow going and have come to view it as a necessary evil. At times, in rare moments I've seen their true hobbyist selves show through.
The end result for me and many like me is that we now view advice from the store as if it were perhaps a single post here in the forum from a beginner or from an "intermediate" level hobbyist, something to perhaps take in, but not necessarily to base actions on. In fact, I've come to be quite cautious about allowing myself to get into conversations in the LFS as I've become more aware of my "vulnerability" as it were. The shelves of equipment and all the tanks become rather an "artificial weight of expertise" I believe.
The "bacteria in a bottle" products almost universally consist of organic material (including the long-dead remains of bacteria who have not had the oxygen and fresh water needed to stay alive) thus usually serving as nothing more than an indirect source of yet more ammonia in your cycling aquarium. Your fish (by respiring with their gills), fish waste, excess fish food and live plant debris are all already doing the same thing. The two species of bacteria you are trying to grow in the filter (the "cycling" of the filter) are just very slow growers, no two ways about it. The fish ammonia is more than enough to feed the fledgling bacteria during the fish-in cycle, which always takes about a month or more.
Meanwhile, while the bacteria are growing with excruciating slowness, the real issue becomes the problem of trying to keep your fish from having permanent gill damage from the ammonia or permanent nerve damage from the nitrite(NO2). We know that this happens at about 0.25ppm (of either toxin) (a tiny amount if you think about it) for some species and that even trace amounts below this can be stressful or less than ideal. What the experienced aquarists have learned is that it can take quite large water changes, quite frequently, to get the water down to these safe levels on a continuing basis. To some beginners it can seem a bit nutty and reckless at first, like they are repeatedly disturbing their fish. Eventually though, they begin to see the less stressed behavior of the fish when the toxins are absent and realize that this advice has been correct all along. Dosing bottled bacteria products and being stingy on water change percentage is all about retaining customers, not about giving fish healthy water.
~~waterdrop~~
(sorry
, I think you got the effect of my morning coffee!)
But really i think as you dad or uncle (cant remeber who it was) keeps fish then plead him to give you some mature media, can only give your original media a fantastic boost!!
