Will I Ruin my Cycle? (Noob Question)

[RockusDukakis33]

I’m building my first tank and I have everything set up and ready to go. I plan on cycling the tank with live Carib Sea Agra Alive, Dry Rock, Fritz Turbo Start, and 2 Clown fish.

Will it be okay to have the Agra Alive sand and Saltwater running in the tank for a couple days before I add the Turbo Start and Clowns? Will not having the Ammonia source make the batería for dormant (does it work that)?

I want to make sure I get off to a good start so I appreciate the help!

 

[KrisReef]

In theory the live sand should be fine for handling ammonia, but I am not sure how it performs in real life. Once the sand and rock are in the tank as you add water the bacteria should start to spread onto the rock.

 

[bushdoc]

I do not put much trust in "Live Sand" which sits for months in a retailer store. At least I would not risk life of two clownfish. I would cycle tank first without fish, either by adding bacterial culture and ammonia or ghost feeding.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

I’m building my first tank and I have everything set up and ready to go. I plan on cycling the tank with live Carib Sea Agra Alive, Dry Rock, Fritz Turbo Start, and 2 Clown fish.

Will it be okay to have the Agra Alive sand and Saltwater running in the tank for a couple days before I add the Turbo Start and Clowns? Will not having the Ammonia source make the batería for dormant (does it work that)?

I want to make sure I get off to a good start so I appreciate the help!

PLEASE DON'T ADD FISH UNTIL THE TANK IS CYCLED!!

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

In theory the live sand should be fine for handling ammonia, but I am not sure how it performs in real life. Once the sand and rock are in the tank as you add water the bacteria should start to spread onto the rock.

Bagged live sand, with few exceptions, does not have nitrifying bacteria that survive in saltwater. At most, it will be a source of ammonia.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

I’m building my first tank and I have everything set up and ready to go. I plan on cycling the tank with live Carib Sea Agra Alive, Dry Rock, Fritz Turbo Start, and 2 Clown fish.

Will it be okay to have the Agra Alive sand and Saltwater running in the tank for a couple days before I add the Turbo Start and Clowns? Will not having the Ammonia source make the batería for dormant (does it work that)?

I want to make sure I get off to a good start so I appreciate the help!

Put the sand, rock, water, and turbo start in, add a (not living!) ammonia source, and let the tank fully cycle before adding any livestock. Cycling a tank with live fish is cruel as they will suffer ammonia poisoning. Even if they are hardy fish and survive, that doesn't make it ok to torture them. Use a piece of raw seafood, bottled ammonia, or fish food as your ammonia source.

 

[Runnin'Reefer]

From my experience, live sand I bought has nitrifying bacteria because I didn't add any bacteria and my ammonia was being converted before I added bacteria. It just has a very very low amount. The bacteria will be fine for a few days without an ammonia source. They don't gain energy from ammonia. It's not their food source. From what one guy told me on here when I asked a similar question, nitrifying bacteria in theory can last in an ammonia-less environment for months. I used frozen shrimp for an ammonia source and then checked the tank with ammonia drops for ammonia break down speed. I would suggest just spending a few bucks on a bottle of ammonia and using that instead of stressing and possibly killing some clowns

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

They don't gain energy from ammonia. It's not their food source.

These 2 statements are incorrect.

nitrifying bacteria in theory can last in an ammonia-less environment for months.

Yes, they can go dormant until they have a food source...

 

[Crofty]

Bagged live sand, with few exceptions, does not have nitrifying bacteria that survive in saltwater. At most, it will be a source of ammonia.

Just as a data point, CaribSea live sand and dry rock only worked fine to cycle a new tank for me, However I didn't add livestock for several weeks until testing looked good.
I certainly wouldn't advocate blind trust in live sand, as was pointed out previously.

 

[Runnin'Reefer]

These 2 statements are incorrect.



Yes, they can go dormant until they have a food source...

Sentence taken straight from a scientific book called The Ecology of Nitrifying Bacteria
"Heterotrophic nitrification does not appear to generate energy for growth"

Also, I think @brandon429 could speak on this much better than I ever could. He explained it to me. I might have said some incorrect things. I haven't read a lot of the literature

 

[RockusDukakis33]

Post in thread 'Open challenge for the hobby: prove that fish-in cycles harm fish.'
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/o...fish-in-cycles-harm-fish.745914/post-10266014

I’m just gonna leave this here….

I appreciate all the responses! sounds like everything will be fine running just live sand with no ammonia for a couple days.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Post in thread 'Open challenge for the hobby: prove that fish-in cycles harm fish.'
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/o...fish-in-cycles-harm-fish.745914/post-10266014

I’m just gonna leave this here….

I appreciate all the responses! sounds like everything will be fine running just live sand with no ammonia for a couple days.

Everyone makes this way too complicated. A small fish would be fine by itself if all dry substrate and new water was used. There would be no large spike, more like a slow ramp up where additions to livestock are weeks apart.

Adding ‘live’ sand or rock introduces higher organic matter and will cause a larger spike as well as move things on a bit faster.

Going even further and pouring in bacteria from a bottle and more organic material to rot, or ammonia directly creates an even larger spike and in theory moves things along even faster.

As for what size system and how large the initial input vs harm to a fish… I will leave that to other folks as I want no part of the inevitable debate.

No matter the case, you get to the same place but none of those cases generate a tank that you can just then pour a dozen fish and 50 frags into. Regardless of the “method“ or age of the system, anything added above the baseline creates a ‘cycle’. The larger the baseline bio load, the more the spike is buffered and the faster the colonies can grow to support it.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I will add this. Take your time. There is no hurry… your system will take years to mature. Don‘t worry about an extra week or three getting started. Get a magnifying glass and watch the good and bad stuff come and go over the next 2-3 months.

 

[brandon429]

@RockusDukakis33

thank you for posting that I really miss that thread, miss being able to back edit more examples of successful fish-in cycles working fine all in one place and gain testimony from keepers where it worked fine, the taboo stuff most cycle umps claims isn’t working or is harming fish. BeanAnimal’s take on cycling matches our hundred thousand examples of successful non-burnt fish with bottle bac cycles


ammonia control isn’t something this hobby needs to worry about, disease vectoring is

there are so many fish-in cycles nowadays, hundreds of thousands of them, it would be nice to be able to reflect on them without folks wrecking my threads until they’re closed. It’s a form of science suppression=resisting inevitable change of procedure/ but in the end people are simply going to keep doing it, successfully, and even if my thread is locked preventing hindsight analysis it’s not going to stop folks from simply making their own pattern studies of the daily posts of fish-in cycles where no animals are harmed



from start to finish it was an analysis simply of why there’s so much success with fish-in cycles, all of them turn out fine, even the extreme examples

like this one, I dedicate this non-burnt, no harm, anemone as proof fish in cycle using NO bottle bac to Erin, and most specially, JDA:

How to cycle my biocube

So I’ve had my biocube 32g set up for about a week now and I put live rock and live sand in there and used imagitarium water from the pet store what should I add to the water to build up the proper bacteria to add fish and when should I do my first water change and about what percentage should I...

www.reef2reef.com

details to not miss there, relevant to my closed case study above:

wet sand alone cycled that reef and the fish wasn’t burnt

he didn’t even need bottle bac


100% of the cycles I collected in pattern before my thread was censored involved that same sand, plus bottle bac, and the cycle umpires still claimed it was burning fish so angrily until my retrospect study was stopped


yet more fish-in cycles continue everyday, and they’re all fine, and any of them tested on a seneye are fine too

closing one thread will not stop updated cycling science, it will force the change resistant forum peers to rethink their stance one day, but not soon

fish disease regardless of how we cycle is the concern

a hundred thousand more successful fish in cycles coming to all reef forums will prove this observation.

 

[Tired]

There's absolutely no harm in waiting to add fish until the tank is verified cycled. A tank that's had bottled bacteria added is /probably/ ready for fish, but "probably" isn't "definitely", and waiting gives time for things like the start of algae growth and a proper fish quarantine.

 

[brandon429]

Reef tank cycles don’t starve, stall, retrograde, get weak, or do anything rather than turn out just fine. That’s the bottom line


make some kind of effort to set up a biofilter then immediately begin trusting it is the point

put all concern, doubt, reading and prep into jays disease forum if you want to care for new fish in a reef tank, the cycle method factors 0%


there it is on file above, as a new example # 234,578 of a fish-in cycle not harming fish, and he didn’t even do it the right way lol

ammonia control is a given in our hobby. fish aren’t being burned, they’re being velveted, watch the forum trends and find unspoken truths in them. R.i.p to my open example call thread to the masses he he- we will just make more of them anyway.

 

[Tired]

Bottled bacteria isn't guaranteed to work. It could have been improperly stored and wound up largely dead, or it could be too old to have much life in it at the moment. Again: there is no harm in waiting until the tank is verified to be cycled. There is no reasonable scenario in which this harms anything.

 

[brandon429]

Example of digging in heels, for 14 years, a terribly painful yet mildly entertaining read and a very fitting example of resistance to change in spite of copious proof to the contrary

No old cycling science umpire on this site can hold a candle to the scientist who for fourteen years has been telling me that no pico reefs are real, they’re fake, and can’t exist.

coral growth vessels

these are amazing if you have an eye for marine science detail

www.scienceforums.net

I barely convinced him 10% they might be real as of yesterday. I started in 2009.

people online who doubt fish-in cycle safety despite literally a million searchable examples on google of it turning out just fine are exactly like old school reefing gatekeepers who accused me of lying when pico reefs came on the scene. There will always be gatekeepers and there will always be changing trends they must painfully accept, is the point of comparison.

I will continue working with Moontanman until he owns his own pico reef, he doesn’t know it yet, but that’s the plan. I’ll keep nudging him until he’s on my side.

 

[Tired]

Congratulations. I don't know that "hey look at this guy being wrong" is relevant to a thread about how taking one's time in reefing is generally a good idea, and he probably wouldn't be very happy to see that posted here specifically for people to make fun of him.

 

[Rovert]

PLEASE DON'T ADD FISH UNTIL THE TANK IS CYCLED!!

^ THIS ^

Surely you're not in that much of a hurry to expose fish to injury. If done right, the cycle is from 4-6 weeks, and shorter if you use a cap full of clear ammonia every couple days and bottled bacteria like Microbacter7 or Fritz. Give those little fishy guys a chance at a good start.