Fishless Cycling with tetra safe start?

[duanes]

If you go with an unheated, Gymnogeophagus tank, Buenos Aires tetras might be the way to go as far as tetras go.
They would tolerate a high pH and temp fluctuations better than any strictly tropical variety.
High altitude Mexican live bearers are also a good choice, they are high pH resistant, and coo water tolerant.
With my Gymnos Xenatoca eiseni and some others of that ilk worked well.

Corydorus erhardti from southern South America also did well I'm my higher pH, cool water tanks

 

[Rafini]

Hey duanes I still haven’t decided, thanks for the suggestions. Buenos Aires tetra have a habit of eating plants and I was hoping to have some plants here as it’s a living room aquarium,
I thought something more colorful would be a better alternative to the “grey and brown” fish I love lol.
My fiancé would prefer colorful cichlids, I am thinking mostly dwarf species as the tank is not huge although overall system size is around 110 gallons including the large wet dry sump.

 

[Rafini]

I would like to do a quick update,
It has been 5 hours since I added the filter stew I got from my coworker.
The stew consisted of tank water with filter sponges rinsed out in the water and filter media also dumped into that bag (right in front of me and quickly too!)
I drove right home, (the stew was in a box away from direct light exposure) and dumped it directly into my sump and mixed it around with my media.
The tank was a little cloudy after that but to be expected.

I have some exciting news from the tests, so lets compare the earlier results to the ones I have just taken 5 hours after adding.

Previously:
Ammonia: 0.50 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 0 ppm

Now:
Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 20 ppm

Ammonia is on the way down and Nitrate is going up with no observable increase in nitrite.
I think the bacteria transplant may have been successful!