Cycle?

[evolved]

What I do and recommend is setup the tank with lotsa macro algae (in a refugium) right from the start.

then wait a week and start the tank with a male molly. And don't add food for a week. Then start feeding a single flake per day after that.

The macros will prevent the dangerous cycles so there will be no stress to the molly.

then, after everything is running, slowly add the marine only more expensive fish.


my .02

That still leaves good potential to burn the fishes gills from ammonia. The macros help on the nitrate front, but you still need nitrifying bacteria at work before things can get to that point.

 

[clownfitch]

True, but that shrimp was dead anyway. If you don't buy it for the tank, someone will buy it for the grill. Either way, it's dead. A living fish would most likely be bought for an already cycled tank. A tank that would be giving the live fish a shot at a happy life. You can't give a dead shrimp a shot at a happy life lol.

My main hobby is saltwater fishing. We regularly use live shrimp as bait for the fish that we catch and in turn throw into a cooler full of icy water. Back at the boat ramp those fish are of course "cleaned" and bag for later consumption. So we use a live shrimp (which dies a horrifying death) to catch a fish that dies a relatively slow freezing death..

I would be willing to bet that a good portion of marine hobbyist enjoy fishing..

Another point to this is that the shrimp that are made available for human consumption are actually not just instantly dead. They get dragged around in a shrimpers net under extreme pressures for up to a few hours, dumped on the deck of a boat where they suffer suffocation, stepped on while being scooped up to be thrown in a cooler full of icy water where they die a relatively slow death due to suffocation and hypothermia.

Through my love of saltwater fishing I have perhaps become a little calloused to a fish going through a week or so of misery in order to properly cycle an aquarium, but these are in my opinion very valid points that I have mentioned.

To another point, it has been mentioned that putting a fish in an already cycled aquarium gives it an opportunity at a happy life... If the fish is captive born then I would agree with that statement. However, most of the fish in our tanks were taken from our vast oceans where they didn't have to eat a flake food, bump into the glass when they decided to forage further than a few feet, or deal with the conditions that come with being in an extremely confined, human controlled, imprisonment. Would you be happy if you were thrown into a closet for the rest of your life and given the minimum requirements needed for your survival? Now I for one have no problem with taking fish from the ocean for my enjoyment but for those who think it is cruel to cycle with a fish, how is it less cruel to give them a life sentence in your tiny prison?

 

[vic67]

Again, to properly cycle a tank you don't HAVE to use livestock. So why subject any fish to the ammonia spike?

 

[IpGu]

I used Microbacter7 to cycle my tank worked great

 

[ReeferRookie]

But does using a fish vs using something dead cycle faster or more appropiate. Just like our bodies that rot ect. Do shrimp and dead fish do the same ?

 

[beaslbob]

That still leaves good potential to burn the fishes gills from ammonia. The macros help on the nitrate front, but you still need nitrifying bacteria at work before things can get to that point.

Not meaning any disrespect, but macros and other algaes prefer and will consume ammonia if present before consuming nitrates. So the ammonia spike will be non existant even with no aerobic bacteria in the system.

But bacterial will still build up with the ammonia and eventually will be consuming the ammonia. At that time the macros are grudgendly forced to consume the nitrates.

So what happens is at most an initial nitrates spike which drops down after a few weeks.

One of the big considerations is what happens in the future should something go bump in the night. Again the macros will prefer to consume any ammonia present and therefore prevent the dangerous spikes and cycles and even a full blown tank crash.

So by starting with macros you not only prevent stress to the first fish but stabilize the entire system prevent future stress to the tank and livestock.

Still that's just me and my .02

 

[tyler1503]

My main hobby is saltwater fishing. We regularly use live shrimp as bait for the fish that we catch and in turn throw into a cooler full of icy water. Back at the boat ramp those fish are of course "cleaned" and bag for later consumption. So we use a live shrimp (which dies a horrifying death) to catch a fish that dies a relatively slow freezing death..

I would be willing to bet that a good portion of marine hobbyist enjoy fishing..

Another point to this is that the shrimp that are made available for human consumption are actually not just instantly dead. They get dragged around in a shrimpers net under extreme pressures for up to a few hours, dumped on the deck of a boat where they suffer suffocation, stepped on while being scooped up to be thrown in a cooler full of icy water where they die a relatively slow death due to suffocation and hypothermia.

Through my love of saltwater fishing I have perhaps become a little calloused to a fish going through a week or so of misery in order to properly cycle an aquarium, but these are in my opinion very valid points that I have mentioned.

To another point, it has been mentioned that putting a fish in an already cycled aquarium gives it an opportunity at a happy life... If the fish is captive born then I would agree with that statement. However, most of the fish in our tanks were taken from our vast oceans where they didn't have to eat a flake food, bump into the glass when they decided to forage further than a few feet, or deal with the conditions that come with being in an extremely confined, human controlled, imprisonment. Would you be happy if you were thrown into a closet for the rest of your life and given the minimum requirements needed for your survival? Now I for one have no problem with taking fish from the ocean for my enjoyment but for those who think it is cruel to cycle with a fish, how is it less cruel to give them a life sentence in your tiny prison?

All good and valid points. Each to his own I guess
I just think it's better to use the shrimp as it was dead already and there's no chance at a second loss of life or suffering (assuming the tank was cycled properly). Regardless of whether I put that shrimp in my tank, it was killed. That death was unavoidable from our position, after all 1 hobbiest a isn't going to bring down the multibillion dollar a year seafood industry. Using a fish to cycle a tank is avoidable and there's substitutes out there that are just as good.
But like I said, each to his own. There's a million successful ways to run a marine tank
I'd go into the fish possibly not being happy in captivity but that's another thread for another day lol.

 

[Oscaror]

What if you just **** in your tank? That should start the cycle.

 

[fishroomlady]

I know a reefer that did just that ^^^ eeewwww!!!

 

[WeLoveReefers]

What if you just **** in your tank? That should start the cycle.

Rofl.