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I'm pretty sure, but just to make sure, when cycling a new tank, adding water from an established aquarium will do absolutely nothing as far as cycling because no beneficial bacteria live in the water, only in the substrate/filter media/decorations etc. Is this correct? Or can I add some water from an existing tank to speed up my cycle?

you are prettymuch correct. the water itself is useless, you want to transfer some filter material, gravel, etc.. Kyle

The water may carry some organisms, but surfaces carry much more by many orders of magnitude. Denny

If you heavily plant an aquarium, and provide strong light so the plants can grow, cycling becomes unnecessary. Lots of helpful bacteria come in on the plants and the plants utilize ammonia directly, so it disappears before ever transforming into nitrite and then nitrate. When I say heavily plant, I mean cover 1/3 to 1/2 of the bottom with plants. I've done this many times, with a full load of fish from day one, and ammonia/nitrite levels never rose to measurable amounts.

I used a ton of plants, cranked the heat up to like 95, and stuck a sponge filter from another tank in there. It was cycled in like 2 days.

I always keep and extra sponge filter or two in other tanks so if I set up a new one I just grab one of the extra filters. No cycling.
Michael

What did the 95 degree heat do to the plants? Denny

I don't think I'd crank the heat up to 95°. One of the main limiting factors for biological filtration is the amount of oxygen available. That's why Bio-Wheels were developed and are so efficient. Believe it or not, there is 30,000 times more oxyen in the air (~210,000 ppm) than in water (~7 ppm in seawater). It's amazing that fish can extract oxygen when it's present in such small amounts. But warmer water holds less oxgyen. A change from 78° to 95°drops saturated oxygen levels in freshwater from 8.2 to 6.9%, and could conceivably slow biological filtration.

When people lose fish during heat waves in the summer, it's not usually the heat that kills them. It's the difficulty obtaining oxygen.

Mike, you should have seen Michi's talk. Turns out there is plenty of oxygen in most water! Though I would agree that the high temp changes that.

The plants are absolutely fine. Couldn't tell you what kind they are but there are several different kinds.

mewickham wrote:I don't think I'd crank the heat up to 95°. One of the main limiting factors for biological filtration is the amount of oxygen available. That's why Bio-Wheels were developed and are so efficient. Believe it or not, there is 30,000 times more oxyen in the air (~210,000 ppm) than in water (~7 ppm in seawater). It's amazing that fish can extract oxygen when it's present in such small amounts. But warmer water holds less oxgyen. A change from 78° to 95°drops saturated oxygen levels in freshwater from 8.2 to 6.9%, and could conceivably slow biological filtration.

When people lose fish during heat waves in the summer, it's not usually the heat that kills them. It's the difficulty obtaining oxygen.

I see. Well that makes sense. Actually I only had it that hot as an accident. But it seemed effective.