[ZBT3091]

Besides damsels, what are the best fish to use to cycle a 75g tank. THey will eventually be removed after cycling is done

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by ZBT3091

Besides damsels, what are the best fish to use to cycle a 75g tank. THey will eventually be removed after cycling is done

You really don't need fish to cycle your tank, this process is inhumane and needs to be stopped. Small piece of store bought shrimp will do the same thing or even better to kick of cycle process. Think about it.

[Ninong]

If you are using live rock (with or without a sand bed), then you really don't need anything else to cycle your tank and certainly NOT any live fish.

If you would like to add a little extra kick start, then just do as zhenya suggested and throw in a couple dead shrimp from the supermarket or a small piece of fish.

Good luck!

[charlesr1958]

Besides being inhumane, what if that fish is carrying a parasite? Then all future fish additions are at risk going into your tank.

Quarantine Tanks

Chuck

[ZBT3091]

What if the live rock i buy from my lfs has pre cured live rock

[Clay12340]

Even pre-cured will suffer some die off as your water is slightly different than theirs and it will be arranged differently.

The cycle time will probably just be very short in this instance, but there will still be one.

[sihaya]

Originally Posted by zhenya

You really don't need fish to cycle your tank, this process is inhumane and needs to be stopped. Small piece of store bought shrimp will do the same thing or even better to kick of cycle process. Think about it.

Ditto. I don't know how or where the idea of using damsels to "cycle" a tank got started, but I wish people would quit doing or suggesting it.

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by ZBT3091

What if the live rock i buy from my lfs has pre cured live rock

If the live rock from your LFS is fully cured, that means that the rock itself is already cycled. Adding it to your tank means that you have just added a whole bunch of beneficial bacteria that already colonize this rock, both inside and outside.

You might have just a tiny, unmeasurable bit of die-off but chances are that you won't have anything measurable. My fully cured live rock was shipped to me from a vendor 900 miles away by air freight. It was in my tank about 20 hours after it was removed from his curing vats. I had virtually no die-off at all.

Just remember that even if you add all fully-cured live rock, you shouldn't just dump a whole bunch of fish into your tank the next day. Allow time for the system to stabilize. I waited more than a month before I added my first fish (a single Foxface Rabbitfish) even though I used all fully-cured live rock. (P.S. -- So-called "pre-cured" live rock that is shipped to you in a box from L.A. is NOT the same as fully cured live rock. Fully cured live rock as been in a dealer's curing vat for at least three weeks after he received it.)

Again, if you want to add some extra kick to your cycle, just throw in one of two shrimp from the supermarket and let them decay. If you put them in a mesh bag, you can remove the resulting detritus a few days later. This isn't really necessary if you have live rock but it won't hurt either. The dead shrimp cycling trick is mostly for saltwater fish-only tanks with dead decorations. Very few hobbyists who frequent these boards are setting up such a tank but that's the sort of tank that the LFS people used to set up all the time. Just marine fish and dead coral skeletons. That's why they used damsels to cycle the tank. They're still living in the past from back in the days before live rock was used in FOWLR tanks.

[Samper]

You could dump a cup of urine in to begin the cycle....

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Samper

You could dump a cup of urine in to begin the cycle....

That might be a bit too much. Probably neater to just add a tiny amount of household ammonia.

[sihaya]

Originally Posted by Ninong

That might be a bit too much. Probably neater to just add a tiny amount of household ammonia.

LOL, yeah, or just a few dead shrimp or something! Why do reefers so often want to make things more complicated (or just grosser) than they have to be?

[Samper]

Just a suggestion....