Be warned, from personal experience, it'll seem like a LOOOOOONG time until its done cycling...
Thanks Inane i understand and from fear of killing any fish im prepared to wait.
Yeah wish I knew about this fishless cycling before. I'd rather wait and just let the tank do its thing then have to worry if my fish (even though they are those hardy little ones) are doing ok, they might be "cycling fish" but they are still creatures that have to suffer, so I think all the LFS should tell their customers about fishless cycling...but they just want to sell fish I guess....
It does seem like forever......I feel it will be 2008 before I can add anything substantial to my tank, I avoid going to LFS with my partner because he always begs me to get a fish, I have to practically yell at him "NO! Just wait or you will kill them!" to get him to stop begging
but he is better now since I told him what it can do to the fish.
Imagine how many people that would turn off from keeping fish though. I know its best for the fish, but, imagine if you went in to buy a, i dunno, lets say a tribble:
lts(local tribble store employee) "I here you're interested in tribbles?"
"Why yes, yes i am."
"Well, we have this lovely 10 gallon tribble tank on sale, complete with a filter, a heater, some funky disco gravel, and a light"
"That sounds splendid, how do i set up my tribble tank?"
Here, it goes two ways, the first being how lfs employees commonly treat fish:
"Ok, setup your tribble tank, light filter heater and the works. Fill it with water, and let it run for a few days. When you're done doing that, just come back and pick out three or four tribbles you like, add, and enjoy!"
Heres how it goes if the employee tries to explain tribbleless cycling to the customer:
"Ok, setup your tribble tank, light filter heater and the works. Fill it with water, and let it run for a few days. When you're done doing that, you're going to want to come back and buy this test kit"
"Test kit?"
"Ah yes, well, it tests for toxic nitrogens, bloznorks, and HIGHLY poisonous shuflargs!"
"... what? I want to keep tribbles, not a toxic waste dump!"
"well sir, tribbles polute their tank with all those chemicals as a bi-product of life and you need to cultivate bacteria that convert those chemicals into inert ones so they dont poison your tribble!"
"but, i kept a gold tribble when i was a kid, and he did fine for a long time..."
"Are you kidding! You were lucky that time, this time you might not be so lucky!"
"Okay, okay... Keep going then"
"Right, well. All you do, is go down to the local hardware store and pick up some shuflarg solution"
"Seriously? I clean sinks with that stuff..."
"Trust me here sir. Just add drops of shuflarg until your shuflarg test kit reads 5 parts per million.." Prospective tribble customer looks over his shoulder at the ferret display, attention waning. "Once your shuflarg levels drop, you'll want to decrease the amount you add by half, but ONLY after your shuflargs drop to exactly zero-" Customer starts reconcidering concidering tribble keeping "Heres the REALLY tricky part, you'll have to check your bloznorks after you start adding your shuflarg because the shuflargifyers arent quite ripe yet"
"Will you excuse me?" Customer bolts to the ferret display, admiring the weasels in a clean box full of air, food, and water.
Most people don't have the attention span or interest to keep fish if they knew how much of a 'pain' fishless cycling is. When you buy a kitty, you give it a litter box, some water, some food, and stuff to play with. Every other common pet on the planet is more or less that simple. Add food, water, and love and you get a pet for years and years. Fish however, are different, you dont just add food water and fish and equal a pet for years. You have to test the water, feed correctly, treat the fish when they're sick and so forth. If you were to give a guy off the street in a lfs a taste of, say, the nitrogen cycle, his eyes would probably go wide and he'd immediately head for the petsmart down the street.
From the outside (if told about how real fish keeping is done) fish keeping is incredibly complex, fragile, expensive, and full of wet floors and misery. From the inside though, its really quite easy, incredibly fulfulling, entertaining, and highly addictive.
I tend to think the horrible fish store employee syndrom is an unfortunate neccesary evil. The false simplicity they paint for people keeps alot of interest flowing into the aquatic industry, and for ALOT of fish keepers, the first week of "oh crap, cycle WHAT?" is the first step into a whole new world of learning.
