So I should be receiving my live rock from KP aquatics on this Wednesday. It’s been a long time since I have done this. Do I just throw a raw shrimp from the grocery store in my tank to get the cycle started? Or what is the best way to start the cycle?
@P-Dub is correct. Theoretically it should sound like cycling is straightforward, but there's actually so many schools of thought. Some care about both nitrifiers and denitrifiers. Some don't. Even the result of cycling is envisioned differently by different people - some just care that some amount of nitrifiers (or denitrifiers) are established, while other want to culture a specific amount capable of handling a certain amount of ammonia. And yet others consider cycling to be a longer term process that includes 'establishing the aquarium' with going through 'ugly phases' and stuff.
Anyways, I subscribe to the school of 'cycling is culturing enough nitrifiers (or denitrifiers) to handle an amount of ammonia specified', which generally for me is culturing enough nitrifiers to handle 2ppm ammonia daily. I am thinking of increasing that to 4ppm a day, because that seems to be safer.
If you want to follow along with this, then cycling with live rock is straightforward. Live rock theoretically should have beneficial microbes already, so all you have to do is add an amount of ammonia as you want to be consumed daily, and see if it is indeed consumed daily (ammonia and nitrite is 0 after 24 hours). If so, congrats! You got live rock with plenty of beneficial microbes and it was an 'instant cycle'. If not, that means there was unfortunately too much die-off, or the live rock never had enough beneficial microbes in the first place, and you need to continue cycling.
'Live rock' is kinda loosely defined now, so it is probably good to test its capacities from the start, and not waste time blindly going in one or the other direction.
