think about it its basicly the same as live rock or live sand if u clean the u kill all the little animals that your fish like to eat (cope-pods) or any of the bacteria  that is also growing on the rocks. and it takes at least 2 weeks for the bacteria to grow back that u killed.

"if u move them once a month u will never have good biological filter as soon as u clean them it kills all the goodness"

But wouldn't that be true for all filter media? I can tell you that I'm definitely not going through a new cycle once a week even though I'm washing my filter media now. I don't do it all at once and I would never wash all the bio balls at once either. Plus it's not like I would wash them in fresh water, I'd get water from the tank.

Oh and on the note of mini goldfish. Sunshine will probably be added to thew new tank first and then in Sunshine's old tank I'm going to qurantine the new fish. Just to let you know I doubt there will be any aggressive behaviour from Sunshine, I think she will be a little scared as she is a bit of a jumpy fish and it's been awhile. But soon they will be the bestest of friends

Not much is developing yet. I expected to fill it up last weekend but I had to move all this stuff around in my room for the tank which ended up in me cleaning my room to the extreme! This weekend things should start going

bacteria for fresh water works the same as saltwater the only reason i said saltwater is because not many use bioballs for freshwater but they are used all the time in salt

if u have bioballs u can clean the floss ( or any other type of media) form the tap to get it more clean. because all the bacteria u need will be in the bio balls so it does not matter if there is any bacteria in the other filter media

creamkiller: In a saltwater tank you need all the beneficial bacteria you can get! So you should definitely not rinse any filter media in tap water. Ever. It's only safer if you let the glorious bio balls get some support from the rest of the filter media by rinsing it carefully in tank water during your maintenance (not every time though).

It will be clean if you rinse it in tank water too. It's the same thing, really.

Besides, why do you think live rock is needed in a marine tank? Exactly, so that there can be as much beneficial bacteria in the system as possible. Why would you need to kill off the ones in the filter then?

And finally, we're not even talking about a marine tank here! How about sticking to the subject already?

Do you have any bio-filter booster? The kind I used let me put my fish in after... *forgot* was it already the day after or two days? No matter! xD But with that, I think you could be able to speed the cycle up pretty fast! It took me two weeks to cycle mine And I had used some water, plants and gravel from the previous tank. I can't stop spreading propaganda about this thing! It's simply called "fluid filter medium" and it's made by Easy Life. It should protect your fish from the ammonia and all too I bet you could introduce them fish already after a day or two (better if it's just one, like you have). While I was cycling my tank, I actually put everyone but Horus there and I changed the water just once during the whole time! Because the ammonia didn't even reach 0.25ppm d:

So, about the water changes, I do think that's simply to keep your fish alive, like you said. Because the ammonia shouldn't get harmful to plants on the same levels as it is to fish. So I think it would be fine if you'd change a 25% from time to time if you really don't want to add your fish until the tank is cycled

I had Stresszyme too, but I swapped to "Stability" from Seachem... I think it is much better, especially for a new tank.

Andrea, I am positive all will be fine, you know how it works.
And please post pics, asap, hehehe... LUCKY SUNSHINE 

Andrea, a tip: buy some big heavy led sinkers from BCF or Kmart and attach them with a rubber band or fishing rod to those plants or hook them in with that led wire.
You should be fine and Sunshine and her future friend will not be able to uproot them later.

I did this only 2 days ago, got this tip from our fish guy. IT WORKS 

Our gravel is sort of pea size.

Only remembering how our babies nibble on my hand all the time (during tank maintenance) I believe they can pull a truck out which sunk into the gravel. , they do have such strong little lips, I couldn't believe it  Their nibbles were really DEMANDING the last time   

Andrea for plants you need a few cm of gravel layer and the best thing would be to create a slope. High at the back where you put the tall plants and the short ones at the front. 

Our lights are on for about 10-12 hours

At home, the Java Fern has grown quite hard into the driftwood in the 100L, so I guess it's possible, but it'll take a while Especially with goldfish around

Btw, I want to see some pics of your setup so far! If you can upload some

Plants keep floating I don't think they are under the driftwood enough and there isn't enough gravel. I have to guy those led sinkers this weekend. What does BCF stand for Hanna? I can't work it out Oh and how big are yours? I may have to buy some more gravel but I'm not sure if that is a good idea because the water is already in there and I'll have to take all the plants/driftwood out. I dunno, we'll see.

Photos soon. I don't have any and as I said some of the **** plants are floating and the little metal bit that keeps them together has fallen off some of them, so they are all over the place.

But an update on the cycle. I tested it today and ammonia is either 0 or 0.25ppm (find it hard to tell the difference between those two colours), nitrite is 0 and nitrate is 5.0ppm. Oh and ph is 7.6. So I'm sort of there, I never saw any trace of nitrite  I'm still going to wait another week or two. I have to sort this plant issue out first anyway.