Ok I cheated....
to be honest,I Got a bit scared of adding the amonia...
I Set up my tank got bore'd after awhile so asked my neighbour
up road for a good squeezing from his 16 yrs set up tank to seed mine
Checked stats.
I got lucky and everything was ok,
on saying that I Only have 1 fish.
all stats are fine and always have been.
doing my 4 bucket water change once a week.
but I don't know what would have happened if i added alot of fish?
way back in the 80's when i had a tropical tank
fishless cycle wasant heard of as it is now
it was run the tank for a week add fish,
I was again very lucky as all thrived and bred like rabbits.
I Had real plants in then too.
so this maybe helped.?
but this day and age,and all the info we now know
and all the chemicals that are added to tap water
and to help the fish's welfare
I guess fishless cycle is the way forward.
plus we didn't know any better in the good old days....
I also had a gold fish 17yrs when I was a kid
and changed his water when you couldn't see him..bless
or if his level went low in his round glass bowl
he must have been walking on the top of the water some weeks
it was that mucky and steamed up as he was on top of a shelf
on top of cooker..bless
yet again we didn't know and thought we was doing the right thing
he ended up old and nearly bent double
and bleeding gills
my opinion.