why fishless cycle?

[filefishfinatic]

FYI: I AM A HOBBYIST NOT A CHEMIST, THIS IS ANECDOTAL

 

Why would you purchase an aquarium and then wait 6 weeks to purchase anything to live inside it? i might just be impatient but when i went into the hobby i wanted a fish tank not a glass box with some equipment on it. after researching and hearing advice from others, i realized that the 6 week cycle is bogus just like low tds air conditioner water and feeding 3 times a day. there is 3 ways to circumvent the cycling process* now 1st method is to use bottle bac, sand, and rock. the bacteria needs a stable ammonia supply, not an inconsistent dose of it. it can inhibit the bacteria because even though it eats the ammonia it can be harmed by it. a fish is a more stable source of ammonia. useed sand or filter media works the same 2. live rock. it circumvents almost everything that causes tank maturity on your rockwork. it gives you cryptic sponges, periphyton, copepods, and coralline. why wouldnt you get it. nowadays its sustainably aquacultured if thats your jam. it is just like bottled bac and its already active to boot. 3rd you can use live sand, this is the least effective method but live sand especially diver collected live sand has lots of microfauna and some bacteria. 

will you cycle your next tank after you heard this?  

 

*you still have to add fish slowly. for a nano tank start with 1 fish and get 2nd fish in the next 30 days then you can do 1 fish every week (this is more effective because you can make sure your tank is okay with the next fish)  for a bigger tank you can start with 2+ fish. a pair of clowns isnt necessarily a good starter fish because they can become very agressive. good choices include hawkfish, blennies, gobies, cardinals, grammas, mollies, filefish, puffers, and just about every other peaceable fish. Dont get fish until your water is clear. 

 

my signature has my tank which i did not nitrogen cycle with 5 healthy fish and lots of hermits snails and a starfish 

[PeterU]

4 hours ago, filefishfinatic said:

will you cycle your next tank after you heard this?  

Yes I'll be cycling my next tank after reading this. Don't know where you pulled up this random 6 week number

Cycling a tank with live fish had already gone out of vogue 17 years ago when I started my first nano, I can't believe people are still torturing fish without properly cycling the tank. Throwing a bottle of bacteria in your tank isn't the same as cycling.

 

As for live rock, it is not available everywhere and very expensive in other areas. Even with live rock, you need to make sure your tank is properly cycled before adding fish.

[WormLicker]

It just doesn't seem fair to drop a fish into an environment that may hurt it/lower quality of life? I used turbo and some live rock to start up, and I still witnessed a nitrogen cycle. I definitely wouldn't have wanted to be a living (thinking) animal in there when that happened, nor when diatoms covered every surface. 

I think it boils down to how much you care about the fish. Do you see them as machines or individuals

[filefishfinatic]

6 minutes ago, WormLicker said:

It just doesn't seem fair to drop a fish into an environment that may hurt it/lower quality of life? I used turbo and some live rock to start up, and I still witnessed a nitrogen cycle. I definitely wouldn't have wanted to be a living (thinking) animal in there when that happened, nor when diatoms covered every surface. 

I think it boils down to how much you care about the fish. Do you see them as machines or individuals

my tank i didnt notice any nitrogen cycle, did you use real live rock from the ocean or did you use some from a fish store. the diatoms dont harm anyhting and if you do screw up and dont add enough diversity from the start, they save you from having spontaneous tank crash if you do a crash and burn cycle from scratch. i used bio spira and its ime the best kind and i used it before i got fish to bolster my bac population at least temporarily. 

[WormLicker]

1 minute ago, filefishfinatic said:

my tank i didnt notice any nitrogen cycle, did you use real live rock from the ocean or did you use some from a fish store. the diatoms dont harm anyhting and if you do screw up and dont add enough diversity from the start, they save you from having spontaneous tank crash if you do a crash and burn cycle from scratch. i used bio spira and its ime the best kind and i used it before i got fish to bolster my bac population at least temporarily. 

I used some established live from the lfs and baked/dry. 

I've read that diatom blooms can irritate fish and other organisms since they are such abrasive little things?

My experience pool is still very small, so pardon me if I'm totally incorrect.

[filefishfinatic]

the fish if its a planktivore would eat diatoms and the fish dosent swim in the diatoms either. i have no clue what baked rock is except for a saftey hazard due to toxins from baked organisims. lfs rock unless its really crusty isnt necessarily that good. i think its ok to use some dry but predominantly live even if its just like a base of live rock with a dry rock nsa coming up from it, dry imo is better for structural purposes

[DevilDuck]

Old beliefs and habits are hard to break and a lot of people have been burned with ineffective bottled bacteria in the past.

I am one of those people who a few years ago became a believer in bottled back and other "skip cycle" methods @Brandon 248

 

I think the issue is a lot of beginners do not have patience to start with a low bioload. They overstock fish into the tank (without QT), toss in bottled bacteria, and the inevitable fish deaths happen.

 

From a timing perspective, I personally think it's the same whether you are 1. Slowly adding fish over the course of months using bottled back startup or 2. Using traditional fishless cycle to grow enough bacteria to process 2ppm for pure ammonia and adding several fish at once after a multi-month cycle completes.

 

As for starting with maricultrued sand and rock, it is prohibitively expensive for most beginners due to shipping costs. There's also the potential to bring in invasive pests that even seasoned reefers have problems dealing with. 

 

"Wet rock" or "live rock" from your lfs or another hobbyist is viable alternative to maricultured. But still a crapshoot for common pests and diseases based on how well their tanks are maintained.

 

 

 

[DaJMasta]

Diatoms are generally too small for planktivores, even if a fish is eating stuff out of the water column there is a minimum size that they can catch and diatoms are typically much less than that.

You sort of seem to be answering the question by just working around it, and that's fine, but that doesn't automatically negate other cycling methods.  People do fishless cycling to build up a community of bacteria in their tank when using no initial live rock (or little of it) without potentially harming that first organism they put in their tank.  Otherwise, the choice would be to introduce a fish to generate ammonia and carry some bacteria, which works but you have to go with a hardy fish or it will likely die from the ammonia/nitrite spike that goes along with the start of the nitrogen cycle.

If you start with live rock and you keep it fresh enough to minimize dieoff or you do large waterchanges to keep the initial ammonia spike down, you're doing the same sort of cycling but without some of the slower/harmful parts of the process, and I'm familiar with it being called soft cycling.  This is what I've done on all of my tanks so far because, like you have pointed out, the biodiversity you get on the rocks is really interesting to me and it helps establish a more stable ecosystem, sooner (not just bacteria).  The disadvantage is problematic hitchhikers - if you're worried about xanthid crabs, aiptasia anemones, polyclad flatworms, mantis shrimp, etc. then any live rock coming in certainly has the chance to carry them.  For many, including myself, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks and even the mean hitchhikers are fascinating, but there are a lot of people who don't want to take the risk and start with dry rock and sand.

I'd argue in either case you have to stagger your livestock somewhat, as the bacterial colony will grow in to suit the bioload and really can only be in place fully when the amount of waste the organisms would be producing is already present, but by giving whatever source of bacteria you choose some time to settle in and multiply (by feeding it, however you do that), you can certainly go from no livestock to a bunch of livestock with relative safety.

[A.m.P]

You did "Nitrogen Cycle", and still are.

Not everyone can afford or access live rock.

Bacteria in a bottle usually needs large waterchanges or dilution to keep up with ammonia load from fish, but sometimes things work out or you miss the transient ammonia spikes.

Ammonia causes permanent scarring and damage to fish and their gills/organs.

Some people are patient and/or don't want pests.

The rest is you basically listing the normal things people do when cycling or establishing a tank, or what you achieve when doing so.

[Murphs_Reef]

On 8/27/2021 at 5:16 PM, filefishfinatic said:

my tank i didnt notice any nitrogen cycle, did you use real live rock from the ocean or did you use some from a fish store. the diatoms dont harm anyhting and if you do screw up and dont add enough diversity from the start, they save you from having spontaneous tank crash if you do a crash and burn cycle from scratch. i used bio spira and its ime the best kind and i used it before i got fish to bolster my bac population at least temporarily. 

Where do you get all this bullsh.it from? You shouldn't be pissing around and testing sh.it out like this... This totally pisses me off this throw away attitude.  

 

Sorry but it's just not right. 

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, Murphych said:

Where do you get all this bullsh.it from? You shouldn't be pissing around and testing sh.it out with animals man... This totally pisses me off this throw away attitude people have these days.  

 

Sorry but it's just not right. 

Very true.

 

I know i wouldn't want to be put in an environment where my skin was being burned and having difficulty breathing leading to long term health issues 

 

Its a total disregard for animals lives because of lacking patience

[jservedio]

11 hours ago, filefishfinatic said:

FYI: I AM A HOBBYIST NOT A CHEMIST, THIS IS ANECDOTAL

 

Why would you purchase an aquarium and then wait 6 weeks to purchase anything to live inside it? i might just be impatient but when i went into the hobby i wanted a fish tank not a glass box with some equipment on it.

If the prospect of a  6 week cycle has bested your patience, quite frankly this just isn't an appropriate hobby for you.

 

6 hours ago, Murphych said:

Where do you get all this bullsh.it from? You shouldn't be pissing around and testing sh.it out with animals man... This totally pisses me off this throw away attitude people have these days.  

 

Sorry but it's just not right

It makes it all the better this nonsense is being presented as "advice" for new reefers.

[Murphs_Reef]

2 hours ago, jservedio said:

If the prospect of a  6 week cycle has bested your patience, quite frankly this just isn't an appropriate hobby for you.

 

It makes it all the better this nonsense is being presented as "advice" for new reefers.

Yeah we all have to remember that giving advice has effect on other reefers, that equates having a level of influence over how someone else's budget is spent as well as animal welfare decisions. 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

People still fishless cycle because as has already been said - we're not a fan of potentially harming/killing our animals. Personally I'm fishless cycling because I don't want to spend, say, £30 on a fish, and £60 on corals then kill the lot in an ammonia spike. It's cheaper in the long run and safer to establish the tank without livestock. It's cruel to subject them to poor water quality because of your own impatience. My lfs won't sell to newly set up tanks either. Maybe you need a new hobby where the welfare of living creatures won't be severely compromised by your own impatience op. 

Gobsmacked that in 2021 someone is saying they do fish-in cycles tbh 😕 I'm disgusted tbh. I really liked this forum but i really dislike this attitude, I hope it's just one errant troll poster and not more widespread.

[PeterU]

1 hour ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

I really liked this forum but i really dislike this attitude, I hope it's just one errant troll poster and not more widespread.

Fortunately from what I've seen this attitude is not widespread on this forum.  I don't believe it's an errant troll, just a very misguided soul that joined the group a week ago.

[filefishfinatic]

On 8/27/2021 at 1:03 PM, DaJMasta said:

Diatoms are generally too small for planktivores, even if a fish is eating stuff out of the water column there is a minimum size that they can catch and diatoms are typically much less than that.

You sort of seem to be answering the question by just working around it, and that's fine, but that doesn't automatically negate other cycling methods.  People do fishless cycling to build up a community of bacteria in their tank when using no initial live rock (or little of it) without potentially harming that first organism they put in their tank.  Otherwise, the choice would be to introduce a fish to generate ammonia and carry some bacteria, which works but you have to go with a hardy fish or it will likely die from the ammonia/nitrite spike that goes along with the start of the nitrogen cycle.

If you start with live rock and you keep it fresh enough to minimize dieoff or you do large waterchanges to keep the initial ammonia spike down, you're doing the same sort of cycling but without some of the slower/harmful parts of the process, and I'm familiar with it being called soft cycling.  This is what I've done on all of my tanks so far because, like you have pointed out, the biodiversity you get on the rocks is really interesting to me and it helps establish a more stable ecosystem, sooner (not just bacteria).  The disadvantage is problematic hitchhikers - if you're worried about xanthid crabs, aiptasia anemones, polyclad flatworms, mantis shrimp, etc. then any live rock coming in certainly has the chance to carry them.  For many, including myself, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks and even the mean hitchhikers are fascinating, but there are a lot of people who don't want to take the risk and start with dry rock and sand.

I'd argue in either case you have to stagger your livestock somewhat, as the bacterial colony will grow in to suit the bioload and really can only be in place fully when the amount of waste the organisms would be producing is already present, but by giving whatever source of bacteria you choose some time to settle in and multiply (by feeding it, however you do that), you can certainly go from no livestock to a bunch of livestock with relative safety.

gulf live rock dosent have aiptasia iirc, aptasia is from the pacific

[filefishfinatic]

On 8/28/2021 at 7:36 AM, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

People still fishless cycle because as has already been said - we're not a fan of potentially harming/killing our animals. Personally I'm fishless cycling because I don't want to spend, say, £30 on a fish, and £60 on corals then kill the lot in an ammonia spike. It's cheaper in the long run and safer to establish the tank without livestock. It's cruel to subject them to poor water quality because of your own impatience. My lfs won't sell to newly set up tanks either. Maybe you need a new hobby where the welfare of living creatures won't be severely compromised by your own impatience op. 

Gobsmacked that in 2021 someone is saying they do fish-in cycles tbh 😕 I'm disgusted tbh. I really liked this forum but i really dislike this attitude, I hope it's just one errant troll poster and not more widespread.

the thing is though, it is cycling technically but the thing is its done in the sea and or its bottled and you just pour it in. i didnt "compromise the welfare of my living creatures" by not waiting a stupidly long time to make a weak bacteria population that i couldve established in 10 minutes. if you have about 1 million of each type of bacteria in your tank from the bottle and they divide once an hour, you get 1 million to the 24th power of each bacteria you would have 190 square inches of bacteria of 1 species in 24 hours.  which is a large population i believe 

[filefishfinatic]

On 8/27/2021 at 3:42 PM, A.m.P said:

You did "Nitrogen Cycle", and still are.

Not everyone can afford or access live rock.

Bacteria in a bottle usually needs large waterchanges or dilution to keep up with ammonia load from fish, but sometimes things work out or you miss the transient ammonia spikes.

Ammonia causes permanent scarring and damage to fish and their gills/organs.

Some people are patient and/or don't want pests.

The rest is you basically listing the normal things people do when cycling or establishing a tank, or what you achieve when doing so.

the thing about pests and the dilution isnt necessarily true in all but small tanks, you can form a massive population of bacterias in 2 days (195 square inches to the 24th power) and with pests and/or live rock cost, garf grunge is 5$ a pound and it is pest free and 100% aquarium cultured so no dieoff. you only need 1 lb per 3 gal also to innoculate your sand beds. nowadays anyway live rock gets so much harvested and they also make sure there isnt some massive bobbit or mantis shrimp crawling on it along with shipping pests are virtually nonexistent. mabye 20 years ago but not today. 

[filefishfinatic]

On 8/27/2021 at 1:03 PM, DaJMasta said:

Diatoms are generally too small for planktivores, even if a fish is eating stuff out of the water column there is a minimum size that they can catch and diatoms are typically much less than that.

You sort of seem to be answering the question by just working around it, and that's fine, but that doesn't automatically negate other cycling methods.  People do fishless cycling to build up a community of bacteria in their tank when using no initial live rock (or little of it) without potentially harming that first organism they put in their tank.  Otherwise, the choice would be to introduce a fish to generate ammonia and carry some bacteria, which works but you have to go with a hardy fish or it will likely die from the ammonia/nitrite spike that goes along with the start of the nitrogen cycle.

If you start with live rock and you keep it fresh enough to minimize dieoff or you do large waterchanges to keep the initial ammonia spike down, you're doing the same sort of cycling but without some of the slower/harmful parts of the process, and I'm familiar with it being called soft cycling.  This is what I've done on all of my tanks so far because, like you have pointed out, the biodiversity you get on the rocks is really interesting to me and it helps establish a more stable ecosystem, sooner (not just bacteria).  The disadvantage is problematic hitchhikers - if you're worried about xanthid crabs, aiptasia anemones, polyclad flatworms, mantis shrimp, etc. then any live rock coming in certainly has the chance to carry them.  For many, including myself, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks and even the mean hitchhikers are fascinating, but there are a lot of people who don't want to take the risk and start with dry rock and sand.

I'd argue in either case you have to stagger your livestock somewhat, as the bacterial colony will grow in to suit the bioload and really can only be in place fully when the amount of waste the organisms would be producing is already present, but by giving whatever source of bacteria you choose some time to settle in and multiply (by feeding it, however you do that), you can certainly go from no livestock to a bunch of livestock with relative safety.

yeah the staggering is what you are supposed to do. i never saw the reason to get all your fish at once, i never did it because it wouldnt be as enjoyable and it could end in disaster and you could always edit your plan as your needs change. 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

6 minutes ago, filefishfinatic said:

the thing is though, it is cycling technically but the thing is its done in the sea and or its bottled and you just pour it in. i didnt "compromise the welfare of my living creatures" by not waiting a stupidly long time to make a weak bacteria population that i couldve established in 10 minutes. if you have about 1 million of each type of bacteria in your tank from the bottle and they divide once an hour, you get 1 million to the 24th power of each bacteria you would have 190 square inches of bacteria of 1 species in 24 hours.  which is a large population i believe 

1) bottled bacteria isn't collected from the sea 😂; 2) in the bottle it is dormant. Have a look at my journal, I used bottled bacteria yet still had an ammonia reading days after adding it. Using BB speeds up, but doesn't instantly complete, your cycle, and does not enable you to add fish a day after adding water as you seem to be implying. Marine ecosystems in the ocean aren't established overnight, why should we expect them to in our tanks? It defies the laws of biology and of chemistry.

[filefishfinatic]

Just now, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

1) bottled bacteria isn't collected from the sea 😂; 2) in the bottle it is dormant. Have a look at my journal, I used bottled bacteria yet still had an ammonia reading days after adding it. Using BB speeds up, but doesn't instantly complete, your cycle, and does not enable you to add fish a day after adding water as you seem to be implying. Marine ecosystems in the ocean aren't established overnight, why should we expect them to in our tanks? It defies the laws of biology and of chemistry.

what bacteria did you use? bio spira worked for me and many other people

[jservedio]

2 hours ago, filefishfinatic said:

long time to make a weak bacteria population that i couldve established in 10 minutes. if you have about 1 million of each type of bacteria in your tank from the bottle and they divide once an hour, you get 1 million to the 24th power of each bacteria you would have 190 square inches of bacteria of 1 species in 24 hours.  which is a large population i believe 

No, this is flat out wrong. Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter have some of the longest doubling times of any bacteria. Nitrosomonas has a mean doubling time of around 24 hours. Nitrobacter is shorter at about 13 hours, but it can't begin to multiply until there is a consistent source of nitrites which requires a healthy nitrosomonas population. This is why cycling takes time. When it comes to bottled bacteria, you have absolutely no idea how much is alive and how much will establish on your rock.

 

Also, while cycling refers to the establishment and stabilization of your bacterial populations, there is way more going on. Even if you go with high quality live rock, depending on what comes in on our rock after the initial die off, not all of the sponges, tunicates, bivalves, algaes, etc. can survive in a reef tank, let alone a newly established one and they are going to slowly die off which can lead to additional ammonia spikes. This is why even if you have no cycle with live rock, it's still suggested to wait a couple of weeks before you add anything.

 

Maybe before spouting off nonsense like this, you actually spend a little time researching it?

[Clown79]

On 8/28/2021 at 7:36 AM, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

People still fishless cycle because as has already been said - we're not a fan of potentially harming/killing our animals. Personally I'm fishless cycling because I don't want to spend, say, £30 on a fish, and £60 on corals then kill the lot in an ammonia spike. It's cheaper in the long run and safer to establish the tank without livestock. It's cruel to subject them to poor water quality because of your own impatience. My lfs won't sell to newly set up tanks either. Maybe you need a new hobby where the welfare of living creatures won't be severely compromised by your own impatience op. 

Gobsmacked that in 2021 someone is saying they do fish-in cycles tbh 😕 I'm disgusted tbh. I really liked this forum but i really dislike this attitude, I hope it's just one errant troll poster and not more widespread.

Rest assured, the vast majority on Nano do not cycle fish in, recommend it, nor promote it.

 

If anything we usually get heated about those who do it.

 

 

[filefishfinatic]

31 minutes ago, jservedio said:

No, this is flat out wrong. Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter have some of the longest doubling times of any bacteria. Nitrosomonas has a mean doubling time of around 24 hours. Nitrobacter is shorter at about 13 hours, but it can't begin to multiply until there is a consistent source of nitrites which requires a healthy nitrosomonas population. This is why cycling takes time. When it comes to bottled bacteria, you have absolutely no idea how much is alive and how much will establish on your rock.

 

Also, while cycling refers to the establishment and stabilization of your bacterial populations, there is way more going on. Even if you go with high quality live rock, depending on what comes in on our rock after the initial die off, not all of the sponges, tunicates, bivalves, algaes, etc. can survive in a reef tank, let alone a newly established one and they are going to slowly die off which can lead to additional ammonia spikes. This is why even if you have no cycle with live rock, it's still suggested to wait a couple of weeks before you add anything.

 

Maybe before spouting off nonsense like this, you actually spend a little time researching it?

if the live rock is pre cured or shipped in water and you fed the live rock it would survive, anything that lives in the sea can survive in an artifical enviroment as long as it fits their requirements such as lighting, flow, food, etc. 

[aclman88]

22 minutes ago, filefishfinatic said:

if the live rock is pre cured or shipped in water and you fed the live rock it would survive, anything that lives in the sea can survive in an artifical enviroment as long as it fits their requirements such as lighting, flow, food, etc. 

Just so you know you’re trying to go against someone who successfully kept a 20 gallon nano for a decade.  
 

That being said, of course if you could magically maintain all of the parameters necessary for an organism you could keep it alive in any artificial environment.  What @jservedio was saying is that there are many things that we as hobbyists cannot maintain a proper environment for and once out of the ocean from where they were harvested, will inevitably die once placed in our tanks.

 

I also really think you should limit your posting and giving advice the other hobbyists. It’s clear you are very new to the hobby without a lot of experience; you should really focus more of your time on building a successful reef tank and learning how to properly care for one before you start telling others how to do so. Experience is by far the best teacher. I did tons of research before I started, but I still had to constantly learn and adapt while I was building and maintaining my tank over the course of a couple years.