"BenignVanilla" wrote:

"John Hines" wrote in message
.. .
"BenignVanilla" m
wrote:

"Sam Hopkins" wrote in message
. ..
If you grab any rock that's under water from your pond and put it in
the
tank it'll contain bacteria and will immediately cycle your tank.
snip

Would plants do the same? I had a tank in my home office that was opaque
with green algae. I was going to clean it, but the only inhabitant, a
pl*co,
was growing like crazy. He seemed to really like the water. I tossed in
some
anacharis from the pond, and topped the water off. Within days, the water
was gin clear.

Yep, everything in a pond or aquarium gets covered in bacteria.

It does help, otherwise it takes a couple of weeks for a bare sterile
tank to build up.

I have always wondered about this. If I take a 55 gallon tank, and fill it
with 54 gallons of water, and a gallon of bleach, surely everything in it
will be dead. Agreed? So how...weeks later is it full of beneficial
bacteria? Is this bacteria airborne?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Yep. Same with algae. And yeast.