A "squeeze" is taking existing matured filter media and literally squeezing it into your tank to be cycled.

The best way is to drain off some of your existing matured tank water into a bucket - remove the filter media from the matured filter and give the media a good clean. Place your filter media back into your filter and set running again as before.

Take the bucket of mucky water and literally pour it all into the tank to be matured - BE SURE TO HAVE ADDED DECHLORINATOR TO YOUR NEW TANK WATER BEFORE ADDING THE BUCKET STUFF OTHERWISE YOU WILL KILL OFF THE NEWLY ADDED BACTERIA - your have now "seeded" your new tank with billions of healthy bacteria that will break down the Amonia and Nitrite that you will expect from your new setup thus kick-starting and speeding up the cycling process. The bacteria will be sucked into your new filter and start to colonise the media within. Stir up the settlement daily to ensure the bacteria get into the filter. It doesnt look pretty but at the end of the cycle you will remove all the debris and 90% water so you can clean it up then.

When starting your cycling process add Amonia to 4 to 5ppm (parts per million) - take your time doing this to allow the Amonia to fully circulate your tank - take regular readings and count how many drops you put in to reach 4 to 5ppm. Test daily until the Amonia level drops to 0ppm. Add more Amonia to 4-5ppm (same number of drops as before) and repeat the process. After a few days you will see a NITRITE spike, this is good. Just keep adding more Amonia and test daily until the levels drop to 0. Dont worrey about your NITRITE levels at this stage as it will take a few more days before this drops to 0. You will find that towards the end of the cycle both your Amonia and Nitrite readings will be showing 0ppm after 24h of adding Amonia. This proves that you now have sufficient levels of bacteria to handle the expected bio-load of a full tank of fish from day 1. Naturally you will need to add dechlorinator when you do your final full water change.

Budding fishkeepers whom dont already have a cycled tank can easily obtain a "squeeze" from another fishkeeper or their LFS would usually be more than willing to supply.

Good luck with it - this method always works for me and ive been keeping fish for over 40 years.

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If you're intending to move all of the fish into the new tank you don't need to cycle it. Set up the new tank, fill with dechlorinated water and let it run for 24 hours to get up to temperature. Then take all the media out of your existing filter, put it in the filter on the new tank and transfer the fish over. You will have the same number of fish, the same amount of filter bacteria and an instantly cycled tank. Feed sparingly and test for ammonia and nitrite daily for the first week or so in case of any minor spikes.

Thanks Fishlady, I've done what you suggested and moved my fish over yesterday , Phew!! That went better than I thought!! . As you advise I will keep an eye on it for the next week or so ( actually I can't take my eyes off it, it looks so great ) fish seem happy in their new home too, but I won't be moving them again anytime soon. Thanks again everyone for all advice, much appreciated . Cheers Alli

Glad to hear it went well

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