Someone has to pay - always
Dry rock is the other option. Cheaper up front cost but will take more time to cycle. How much longer is difficult to say but there is a process more or less that you would follow. Just finished my 210 gallon cycle and went with 150 lbs of dry Pukani and went with a fishless cycle. Cleaned the rock, bleach, rinse, bleach, rinse, lanthium chloride, rinse, lanthium chloride, rinse, pressure wash, aquascape, fill with ri/ro water, dechlorniate, bring up to temp, dose ammonia to get to 2ppm, cycle started. Day two measure ammonia to verify 2ppm, wait another two days, test ammonia again, continue process until Ammonia went to 0 and Nitrites shot up. Dosed 2ppm ammonia again to see it was processed in under 24 hours, cycle more or less complete.
On average I think most will say it will take 30 - 45 days to cycle using shrimp, food, and possibly fishless / ammonia. I started mine in early Feb and it was reading 0 ammonia under 24 hours in about 3 weeks. I used Dr Tim's though to sort of kick start the bacteria but in the end it wasn't needed. I waited anyway and only moved my 40 breeder into the 210 this past weekend. So it was doing its thing for another month anyway...go figure.
That is it more or less. Dry rock has value but you pay with your time and energy cleaning, testing, and prepping. Not a bad thing. In fact, everyone should do it at least once anyway to see how the cycle works and watch something come to life in front of you. It really is a neat process.
