Kinda expensive for cycling fish don't u think??! Not too mention they are proned to dying...
Op: pick up 12-24 rosy red feeders (2$), fill ur tank up with water 70-80° make sure its dechlor, fire up filters, heater and bubbler, put the fish in, feed em 2x per day and test in 2 weeks, then do a 30% wc to bring down ammonia and nitrite and at 3 weeks u should start to read nitrates, when u do that means ur bb is established, so before putting ur show fish in, do a 50% wc to get levels to almost 0ppm. Keep testing water and do everyother day wc till nitrites and ammonia are zero, then maybe just once per week 50-40% wc to keep nitrates low when fish are in!
Make sure u have bio media (10-20$) in ur filter for the bb to house in and a good fw test kit, maybe api (30$)
#1 S. Vettel
Do you have a tank up and running? If so, take the media you are going to use in the tank and put it in a media bag drop it in the other filter you have going, or even right in the tank. After a week or two, media is seeded, put it in the new filter.
If you dont have a tank to put it in you could take the media to an LFS and ask if they could seed your media in their system.
Or, you could set up a small tank in the garage or somewhere, and set the media in the tank and add the starter to the tank. You could add ammonia and get the cycle going without killing any fish. All you have to do is seed it, nature and fish mess will do the rest!
Look up fishless cycling. Try it out, it works. No dead fish, or wasted money.
personally i like the fishless cycle... take some frozen food, or even a shrimp and just toss it in the tank... keep the ammonia under 4ppm with water changes... and the tank will cycle generally in 7- 14 days. at the end of the cycle process water change down to 40 ppm nitrates... add fish. keeping your ammonia traceable but under 4ppm gives the bacteria optimal breeding conditions. also keep the filtration running ect like you will when fish are in it. bacteria need ammonia to eat and o2 to reproduce. ammonia over 4ppm tends to either inhibit growth or kill bacteria off.
useing feeders to cycle a tank can often introduce parasites and diseases. useing other random fish is expensive, and inhumane imo. your exposing them to poor water conditions and the fewer/smaller fish and less bio load, can and will cause a mini cycle if you add more then the initial cycle can handle.
my 2cents
You should really do any water changes during cycling process. If you insist on using fish then I would recommend Rosy Reds, very cheap and disposable fish.