180g cycle question

[floridabromo]

So I started cycling my 180g the other day and I have measurable ammonia, some nitrites, and my nitrates appear to be at 1 right now.. I have some deli shrimp in them and that's what I was using to add ammonia.. my question is can I add some pj cardinals to the tank and finish cycling with them? I know they're pretty hardy, with my last tank I just used them to cycle it. I just wasn't sure how much ammonia they could actually handle? it tested at .4 today

 

[Dilan Patel]

Any ammonia is deadly I believe/ I believe just because a fish is tolerable to that condition should not mean it should be in there. So in my opinion I would not for the sake of the animal and that the ammonia is not 0.

 

[MmmmBalf]

Using fish to cycle a tank is considered cruel, regardless of how hardy they are. Ammonia burns their gills & eyes & scales, resulting in poor health or death. You should be patient & wait for the tank to cycle fully before adding any livestock. Being impatient is the quickest way to disaster with a saltwater tank.

 

[PatW]

I would never ever add fish with measurable ammonia. When you have a large tank, you can sort of cheat on the cycle. You want your ammonia to go to zero and see nitrate appear in the tank. You could add a couple of small fish to a large tank. Feeding them will coninue the cycle. The tank should be able to remove their ammonia production as it forms.

But that seems to be an unnecessary risk. It really does not take that long to thoroughly cycle a tank. Even inexpensive fish are not that cheap and putting them at risk seems really cruel. Often even cheap fish turn out to make great pets. Why risk them?

 

[brandon429]

hey is there any chance you are using live rock that already has coralline and living creatures on it, we wouldn't add ammonia there, or is this dry rock that should be getting ammonia? accurate cycling requires that first step to know if its the rock that even gets ammonia at all. 100% of cycling articles don't discern, yet when we do cycles start to behave all awesome. if yours is dry rock, the kind that gets ammonia, then just continue where you are, no fish, dump in some bottle bac, wait a month, change out the water and input some corals