I'll start by stating my current position. I started salt water 25 years back wiith a 55 gal, test kits, several swimmers and a few crawlers...no live coral. I learned a lot then but that tank wasn't a reefer or intended to be. Now I have a 120 gal twin corner drip tank built into the wall. Bought it 19 years ago and dry fit to the hole where it has stayed dry until now (I guess I was taking it REAL SLOW). This forum has taught me lots in a short period and I intend to make it a daily visit to not only learn but share my knowlege (small but growing) with newbies too. I want to adhere to the "going slow" school of thought within general guidelines but I've also spoke with persons in aquaria shops that tell me they get their cycles done inside of two months. I just don't see how this is possible if the discusions and warnings on here are credible. My sump system will arrive next week and by then my AI hydra 26's will be installed on my new hood (home built). Intentions are to add water and rocks by early next month and let the magic begin. So as the title reads, are there any safe shortcuts to take that will be safe and rewarding? Thanks in advance to all who choose to share.
I'm not a fan of the term "cycle" for a few reasons, mostly because we say a tank has "cycled" despite the fact that the term comes from an ongoing process, the nitrogen cycle. From that perspective, a tank is never cycled but it is only the establishing an ongoing process. This leads to a tricky situation where a tank being cycled means different things to different people.
As an example, I use Biospira to set up my QT system. I can get that tank "cycled" and ready for fish in a matter of hours. Is that a shortcut? You bet, and it is one that works great. You can accomplish the same thing by putting rock in a tub with water and adding an ammonia source.
Some people look at a tank and want to see some bio growth on the rocks before they call it cycled yet this has nothing to do with the nitrogen cycle. Its not a bad idea to look at it this way. It lets you know that there is some life in the tank and that life provides a buffer and directly absorbs ammonia. Not to mention providing food so you can add a CuC. Can you shortcut this process? Sure, add live rock directly from an active system.
And then there is the rock itself. Does it have stuff in it that is decaying? Will this affect water chemistry? It can. Some people will tell you a tank isn't cycled until all this stuff breaks down and reaches an equilibrium. Again, a shortcut for this is to use rock that is properly cured and prepped for a system.
So is a tank cycled when it is ready for coral? Is that why people say to wait 6 months? I don't think so. People set up frag tanks all the time and don't wait 6 months for them to cycle. They can even keep delicate acro's in these systems. They do it all the time at frag shows.
From a coral perspective, I think the better question isn't when a tank is cycled, but when is it ready for coral. To me, this means the rock has established a nice layer of biological growth. Most importantly, this means that the water chemistry is stable. No nitrate, phosphate or temperature spikes. No salinity swings and pH not varying by more than .3 over the course of a day. In many ways, this is more dependent on the hobbyist than the tank itself. It takes time to learn how a system reacts. The flip side is that I am confident you could take a new system with cured live rock and give it to an expert hobbyist and they could have fish and coral thriving in a week.
