QT while cycling main tank

[SeeFu]

I've heard several videos where people will say you can start a QT and QT your first fish while your main tank is going through the nitrogen cycle. How do you keep the ammonia levels from spiking if there's no live rock available to place into the QT?

 

[W1ngz]

Bacterial additives and ammonia detoxifyers like seachem Prime or API ammo-lock.

 

[brian bochichio]

You need to put some type of media in your QT like marine pure blocks, matrix, etc something that will eat the ammonia. You will also need to cycle your QT.

 

[George81]

You want something that won’t absorb medications. For my qt, I have 1L of seachem matrix and I use bio spira to seed it. You can add fish and then add the biospira there really isn’t a cycle time. I dump the biospira over the matrix. I haven’t had any issues with ammonia since I switched to matrix. Prior I had a few seeded sponges and battled ammonia.
You can absolutely have fish in your qt while your main tank cycles. There are lots of threads and qt protocols on here to help.

 

[SeeFu]

thanks

 

[lapin]

And there is always TTM. Fish are moved to a new tank every 2 to 3 days. Thus no build up of ammonia.