Some questions on cycling new aquarium using established filter media?

[Lollum96]

Setting up a new aquarium currently for housing a single Aba Aba knife fish. When I buy the Aba it will be just 10cm long and I've heard at this age they are very fragile to water parameters.

I wanted to try and create an established setup for the Aba Aba knife fish but quickly. So I gone to my LFS and explained the situation. They very generously scooped me a massive bag of bio balls from their shops central filtration system and they gave it to me for free in a bag.

I've added this media to my filter now and everything is setup and running.

My question is will this completely cycle the tank instantly or do I still need to wait? And if this filter media does completely cycle the aquarium then how long will the tank stay cycled without fish being added?

Surely a fully cycled tank will die off quickly without any living fish to actually support the bacteria?

Also the filter media from my LFS came from a tropical setup. I havent plugged the heater in yet on my tank so it's sat at about 20 Celsius. Will the media still cycle my tank with the temperature difference?

Thanks

 

[Kbhenze]

Do a search for fishless cycling. You will need to add ammonium to feed the bacteria until you get the fish.

 

[Yuki-Rihwa]

I wanted to try and create an established setup for the Aba Aba knife fish but quickly. So I gone to my LFS and explained the situation. They very generously scooped me a massive bag of bio balls from their shops central filtration system and they gave it to me for free in a bag.

You are good to go no need do or going through another cycle process.

 

[CichlidFiend]

Youre going to need a test kit to determine what stage of the cycle your tank is in, the bacteria from the bio balls you received from the LFS will need to establish and colonize, you will need to supplement ammonia until you add fish, you can do this by adding ammonium supplements, some have used raw shrimp or fish cut into pieces, they will need to decay to produce ammonia, some have used flake fish food. Would highly recommend googling 'fishless aquarium cycling' lots of good guides and resources