Cycling, No Problem

i have never had a problem cycling a tank but my way is not for everyone because i like a lot of elodea and bright light, enough light to make oxygen bubbles come off the elodea forever.
put in a couple of nano fish (2 to 4 male guppies etc) and feed very sparingly for a week or 2. if your nano's are swiming around looking for food happily then add any other fish at a rate of 1 or 2 for the next couple of weeks.
when i had lots of tanks in the olden days, i used to take a sponge out of the filter of an established tank and squeeze it into a large jug of water until you got a nice lot of brown gungy water and then put a sponge from the new tank filter in and give it a good squeeze to fill it with yuk.
but you can't beat putting a lot of lovely ammonia loving elodea in the tank. for the lights you can't beat the old fashion fluorescent tubes, white daylight tubes, i used to buy old factory fittings and replace the tubes, all of the plants used to grow like crazy.
ivor