Zymbac to cycle tank

[13BRAVO]

They declined? Besides getting a strange look from the girl at the shop I got stinky brown water for free. I'm amazed they didn't even squeeze some gunk for you. Its not like it costs the shop anything but a few cents in water... gravel maybe a couple dollars at the most...

*shrug* is there a different store you could take your business to?

I have a feeling that it was possibly one of two things:

1) She was lazy
2) She thought I might not buy the Zymbac if she gave me the gunk...and she really wanted to make those $7....sigh.....

The lfs that I found that I kind of like is not so L ......as in local so I don't always have time to go out there. There happens to be one about two blocks from me......it is sooooo tempting to keep going there for obvious reasons. (btw, a little history: this is the same fish store that sold my father two male bettas and some other fish like 25 years ago when I was a kid....I am sure you can imagine what happened).

However, I have mainly avoided going there because I don't like the vibe I get there (although they do have some cool fish)....

 

[13BRAVO]

For argument's sake I thought I would share this:

I had ammonia readings of about 4 or 5ppm and my nitrites were still 0ppm. I added 3/4 of the zymbac on Friday night and the remaining 1/4 on Saturday night. This morning, my ammonia tested at like 8ppm and my nitrites at 0.25ppm!

Not sure if the zymbac had anything to do with it, or if the nitrifying bacteria finally got around to a size capable of converting the ammonia (I have been cycling for ~8 days or so). But I thought I would throw this out there anyway....comment?