new tank owner- can i skip the cycle?

Putting fish in without worrying about the cycle beforehand, is like building, buying and moving into a house without any flushing toilets or ventilation for 2 months. Yuck.

Responsible fishy cyclers, they tend to at least call for a porta-john and change it out when it gets too toxic... but too many "people" and not enough "porta-johns" would be hazardous to the inhabitants health... (ok maybe I'm getting carried away with the illustration. :P)

It's easy to ensure that new fish are acclimated with at least stress as possible and cared for from day one pending no illness, and I don't personally agree fish deaths should be blown off so 'oh well' IMO. It's a sign of something wrong, be it from the fish store, or your fish tank.

Things like lowering the lights in the room, taking time to acclimate the fish to the new water and temp, keeping noise down, making the car ride as short and dark as possible, and keeping the temp stable until they get to the tank.
 
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Come on...everyone starts somewhere and Gentleg has a) just come into the hobby and b) is looking for a bit of help. You could be a bit more supportive.

Everything is 'easy' when you have experience and nothing is when you've just started.
 
Only thing i could really say for now is to

#1 Find a local store that sells BIOSPIRA. That's pretty much the only thing that will help you "skip" the cycle. Petco and Petsmart and all those chains don't carry this, atleast not that I've seen. If you can't find a store that carries it aroudn you, then order it offline. It WILL help. Order a couple, because i have heard some packages have bacteria that has already died off.

#2 Keep up on water changes, especially at any presense of ammonia, nitrite.
 
Thanks for all the advice folks.. the question as to what fish i have in there, I have 6 serpae tetras, 2 golden tetras, 3 gourami and 5 platys. Im going to go see about a water drip tester now. the test strips im using have no ammonia strip, which concerns me alot.
 
i just did my first water change, made a huge mess trying to figure out a simple way, until my gf pushed me away and did it.. got a water drop test for ammonia and it was between .25 and .5. looks good now.
 
do as many changes as necessary to keep it below .25; 50% back to back is fine, if that's what it takes.
 
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