soup wrote:
Have googled for aquarium cycling and there seems
to be 301,000 different opinions on how to do it.
A straw poll, how many believe in the chemical
approach and how many in hardy fish and does
anyone have a method involving black cats and
ouija boards ?.

As I understand it "cycling" is too get the level
of good bacteria up so they can "eat" fish waste
and convert it into nitrites then convert these
nitrites to nitrates.


Your understanding of the cycle is correct. And during this process,
there is a level of toxic ammonia or Nitrite in your tank, depending on
how much water is changed out at frequent intervals. If you are very
conscientious and dependable during this period, and change a large
amount of water daily, the impact to the fish will be minimal. Better
yet, if there are live plants in the tank, the fish may not even know
they're swimming in a toxic solution at all.

steve