It has definitely been hard to wait, but it will be well worth it because I feel that my future aquarium will have a better chance at being healthy and successful. The way I see it is that if I'm going to put money and time into something, I might as well do it right. I'm sure I'll make a mistake or two, but that's just part of the learning process. As I said before, I've grown up around animals my whole life (my mother is an animal lover). Right now I have 6 turtles, a dog, 2 cats, and a 4 feet long iguana...all of which eat better than I do! In the past, we've had sugar gliders, fancy rats, chameleons, and my aforementioned goldfish which all lived full, happy, and healthy lives (they all died around their maximum age limit in captivity, according to my research).

I will be getting my tank ready to start the cycle process within the next few days. I'm going to just cycle it naturally with some minnows. I hear that the cycling process can take around 3 months. Is this accurate or does it depend on the size of the tank? Thanks once again for the information, and I will check my local pet stores for those heaters that you mentioned. I need to pick up a hood anyway to keep the minnows from jumping.