Nope, straight from the kitchen sink tap into a bucket then into the tank.
I have not had any mass deaths so far, Ive had the occassional fish death though. Although, one of my pregnant guppies died yesterday, because of dropsy. Now the 2nd female (pregnant also) is showing similar signs and looks very lethargic. I had moved her into the new tank which I imagine is not yet cycled properly, to prevent her from being chased to death by the males. I guess the stress of being chased around in the fish tank by a net (try catching a guppy in a heavily planted aquarium) was too much for her, and also the shock of moving her to the new tank.
I wanted to ask:
What If I take out the sponge that is on my Shark 1 Internal filter, and take out the filter that is in the new tank, and then squeeze the grimy water out of the Shark's sponge onto the new power filter's sponge, will it make the cycling faster because the bacteria from the Shark (taken from an established aquarium) will impregnate the new filter sponge and therefore establish bacteria colonies faster than they would have formed naturally.
Secondly, I wanted to ask how long it takes a tank (25L) to cycle if I put 4-5 guppies in it?