Cycling with Fish?

RaeOfSunlight · Jul 12, 2022

So much like a lot of new reefers, as soon as I had an interest in the hobby I watched a lot of BRStv's videos, especially the shorter clips that serve as a beginner's guide. I ran into some conflicting info from what I had previously known during their cycling videos. It seems they advocated for cycling a new tank with a pair of clownfish and using a bacteria additive to jumpstart the N cycle. Much of the literature I had read before leaned towards traditional cycling before adding any flora or fauna.

Similarly, if a fish-in cycle is a thing, can certain inverts be added as well to combat algae growth?

For reference My tank is brand new, with regular sand and dry rock added.

brandon429 · Jul 12, 2022

Updated cycling science for 2022:

inverts don’t necessarily help with algae per the nuisance algae forum. They have about a 10% chance of helping you per that forum (if clean up crews fixed invasions, nobody would be posting for help after already stocking cuc and inverts)

bottle bac from Dr Tims, biospira or Fritz and I can add ATM colony to that list can carry fish on day one without burning them. Source for proof: any seneye study on the matter + over one million searchable posts online for fish-in cycles. all the fish act normal because the bottle bac works out of the bottle, BRS is right in that sense.

fish disease is the risk unspoken by BRS. Though you can handle ammonia instantly on day one, the fish disease from skipping fallow and qt is killing fish by bucketloads, source for proof is the fish disease forum and the twenty new threads coming today alone. even people who wait two months to add fish, an old school cycle, still, get the same disease %

slow cycling does NOT reduce disease incidence

what you read about bottle bac and fish cycling comes from the forum fear rumor mill and a bunch of non seneye ammonia test meter owners. Bottle bac meant for cycling is good and ready and able.

brandon429 · Jul 12, 2022

Bio-spira works great

I just started a new tank a little over a week ago. I started with all dry rock and new sand. I added a bottle of Bio-Spira and put fish and coral the same day. Never saw any ammonia and fish and coral seem healthy.

www.reef2reef.com

there’s a full reef, fish coral and anemone stocked on day one, with zero cycle, using biospira once. No testing. You can’t keep an entire reef alive if they’re being burnt, only non burnt anemones open up brightly for two years. See the disease outbreak in fish after year 1

thats the key hidden pattern, unrelated to cycling mode. our reefs need direct disease preps to live. Cycling is a non issue, dump the bottle in tank= your cycled.

RichReef · Jul 12, 2022

How large is your system? Is your rock cured, dry, or will you be curing in the tank? What is the condition of your sand?

Inverts are a no until you are sure the cycle is complete.

If it's a nano I would not use a fish.

If it's over 50 gallons cycling with a fish and some bottle of starter is okay as long as you aren't using dirty rock or sand.

A large volume of water isn't going to hurt a small fish or 2. Adding too many fish too fast will.

You will get varying opinions. This is how I am doing it (tank will get filled this weekend). How I've always done it. How I will always do it. The variable is the condition of your rock and substrate.

RaeOfSunlight · Jul 13, 2022

brandon429 said:
Bio-spira works great

I just started a new tank a little over a week ago. I started with all dry rock and new sand. I added a bottle of Bio-Spira and put fish and coral the same day. Never saw any ammonia and fish and coral seem healthy.

www.reef2reef.com

there’s a full reef, fish coral and anemone stocked on day one, with zero cycle, using biospira once. No testing. You can’t keep an entire reef alive if they’re being burnt, only non burnt anemones open up brightly for two years. See the disease outbreak in fish after year 1

thats the key hidden pattern, unrelated to cycling mode. our reefs need direct disease preps to live. Cycling is a non issue, dump the bottle in tank= your cycled.

Thanks for the link to this thread!

brandon429 · Jul 13, 2022

I’ll tell you something funny about pre testing to prove the bottle bacteria aren’t dead…that’s the risk in Ike’s approach, if the bac is dead all that reef life wouldn’t have made it

-I’ve never had a failed cycle where things died from dead bottle bac since I’ve been reefing online. The incidence is so low, I don’t know of a single example. Twenty years of observing online cycles. There are dead bottles out there, but I also might win the lottery today too. A tiny meteorite might fall from the sky and dent my car today…

add to that ironically that everyone nowadays in threads you can see is pre testing to prove readiness. They’re using non digital kits that trick them into thinking their bacteria are dead when they’re not (false stuck cycle threads are all stuck cycle threads)

so unless you own a digital calibrated ammonia meter, most don’t, I’d forego proof and just dump in the bottle like Ike. The way you can insulate against dead bottle bac is to put in a pinch of ground up fish food when you dose the bac, wait ten days, then begin without testing. That’ll cover a worst case scenario using a known wait time for natural ammonia controllers to catch up.

brandon429 · Jul 13, 2022

Cycle issues

I am cycling a 120 reef tank with Dr. Tim’s one and only. My ammonia is at 1.0 but my nitrites have been zero for 5 days. I tried to get information from Dr. Tim’s but they don’t respond. Is there anything I need to do to get my ammonia down?

www.reef2reef.com

direct case point. False stuck cycle

non digital ammonia kit is always, always, always always in play and the pet store he verified with: non digital test kit

any seneye owner (most expensive best ammonia test kit) knows right off the bat that cycle above isn’t stalled at 1.0

where they’re going wrong: the reading is nh4 and hasn’t been converted into nh3 *per test kit instructions

reefing only cares about nh3 and they’re reacting to nh4

Nh3 conversion means his sample they are reacting to would be ten times less than he’s seeing currently.

we can find about thirty seneye cycles with Dr. Tim online to study…on a digital nh3 meter, it’s ready day one.

testing has messed up this guys cycle, the actual cycle isn’t broken.

James5214 · Jul 13, 2022

I cycled my tank with a pair of clowns. I used live sand and dry rock as that's all my LFS had and the smallest order for live rock from a farm here in Florida was 200$ and I didn't need that much as it's only a 20L. But I did water changes almost everyday or every otherday to keep all levels low and unharmful to fish while dosing fritz 9 live bacteria and some stability. It is possible to do with fish but you cannot get lazy and not check parameters or do decent amount of water changes

Mr. Mojo Rising · Jul 13, 2022

If you are asking for opinions on cycling with fish or not, my opinion is that there is no need to cycle with fish these days, bottled bacteria can do that very quickly and safely.

We are in this hobby to take care of fish, so forcing a fish through an ammonia spike which might or might not kill them, to me is the incorrect path.

James5214 · Jul 13, 2022

I never went through any spikes on mine from day one. Used live sand and fritz 9 and stability and water changes. Have same clowns and corals in tank now

James5214 · Jul 13, 2022

But what works for me may not work for you. So OP don't always listen to everything on here as it may not work for your system. Everyones fish and corals are all different and have own personality. Just do your research and take a collection of all the research you did and see where they have similar views and try and replicate

brandon429 · Jul 13, 2022

she means adding fish and bottle bac on the same day LOC, not just fish alone. agreed that would burn them.

where the hobby gets it backwards is they're thinking fish + bottle bac from the top three types are still burning fish, but it doesn't

Dr. Reef has a large, well-controlled study on timing ability using seneye and all common cycling bottle bac can handle nominal ammonia loading in the water day one, it'll be converted safely within an hour any seneye study shows. Some of the ways the hobby has been mislead in cycling to falsely assume fish + bottle bac = harm has to do with testing approach.

they're all on api or red sea, for one. that's nh4 reading right off the bat, and it won't be zero even in a running reef 5 years old...so the cycler is under the impression their fish must be burning. thats due to using the wrong assessment rule and a kit that doesn't read nh3

now if we get cheap ammonia alert badges (reads as nh3) that'll show a different tale on fish + bottle bac cycling...or seneye. we know using better rules that reefs run consistent low ammonia, not zero, some is always in turnover after production and with meters that read as nh3 the incidence of falsely assuming harm is being done just stops, plus the measurements line up with lack of symptoms in the fish.

in all stated instances of fish + bottle bac cycling doing harm, the fish are doing fine and the kit is reading nh4 in the pic. all of them.

quickly importing fish disease is the real killer, a delayed killer.

James5214 · Jul 13, 2022

Oh no. I didn't do that lol yes as you stated I'm sure there gills would of inflated and caused severe burning

James5214 · Jul 13, 2022

Like I said I kept mine under control with big water changes

brandon429 · Jul 13, 2022

Someone needs to put this thread on BRS's youtube videos for readers to see.

If BRS advocates fish-in cycling using unprepped fish from a pet store, that's killing fish by skipping all disease controls.

but if they advocate doing it with pre quarantined fish, I say rock on lol. That'll pass seneye inspection anytime it's ran.

see how disease control is where it's at? ammonia fear is so 1996.

RaeOfSunlight · Jul 15, 2022

I do plan on adding bottle BAC prior to introducing any stock. Will be adding bacteria today, probably some coralline algae Monday. Soonest I would be adding fish would be late next week, and planning on doing daily water tests with frequent 10% water changes as parameters settle out.

Lasse · Jul 15, 2022

FYI

15 Steps to Starting a Saltwater Aquarium: The Lasse Method

15 Steps to Starting a Saltwater Aquarium: The Lasse Method Display Tank. Photos are all courtesy of Lasse Forsberg. ©2019, All Rights Reserved. INTRODUCTION There are many methods to start a saltwater aquarium--each major aquarium product manufacturer has its own. Common to most, however...

www.reef2reef.com

Sincerely Lasse

ReefGeezer · Jul 15, 2022

Lasse said:
FYI

15 Steps to Starting a Saltwater Aquarium: The Lasse Method

15 Steps to Starting a Saltwater Aquarium: The Lasse Method Display Tank. Photos are all courtesy of Lasse Forsberg. ©2019, All Rights Reserved. INTRODUCTION There are many methods to start a saltwater aquarium--each major aquarium product manufacturer has its own. Common to most, however...

www.reef2reef.com

Sincerely Lasse

In my opinion, this is a great way to start a tank. "Cycling" is more than creating bacteria to control ammonia... and by the way, that's the easy part!