Cycling a tank with fish

[Worldreeftank]

Has anyone ever cycled a tank useing fish while testing the water everyday to watch for ammonia burst, then when this happens put the fish is a qurantine tank while the tank starts it's cycle? Is this possible or is this bad for the fish as well thoughts plz!

[jrill]

How about just using ammonia like they do with freshwater tanks. Remove the fish of course.

[ShannyG]

If you're going to remove the fish anyway, why not do it before cycling? Your theory makes no sense to me. Unless you're talking about using the fish to inititate the cycle, but a chunk of frozen fish food works the same.

[snorvich]

Cycling a tank with fish is last century practice.

[Worldreeftank]

I'm not going to do this it's just a random thought I had in my head lol and thought why not ask people with some knowledge

[Worldreeftank]

After all that is what this forum is for

[MondoBongo]

Cycling a tank with fish is last century practice.

+1

also, you need a continuous input of ammonia to keep the cycle going.

so removing the fish would serve no purpose other than to stall your cycle.

you put in your fish, it eats and poops, starts producing ammonia. this begins the process of the nitrifying bacteria growing to process the ammonia in to nitrite and then nitrate, right? so then you remove the fish, the ammonia goes away. suddenly there is nothing for you nitrifying bacteria to feed on, and their numbers start to diminish.

this is why you will see people leaving a shrimp in there to decompose, dosing ammonia daily, or the so called ghost feeding of the tank. to keep adding a source of ammonia for the bacteria to feed off of. no more ammonia, no more food.

[snorvich]

What MondoBongo said.

[PhaneSoul]

+1

also, you need a continuous input of ammonia to keep the cycle going.

so removing the fish would serve no purpose other than to stall your cycle.

you put in your fish, it eats and poops, starts producing ammonia. this begins the process of the nitrifying bacteria growing to process the ammonia in to nitrite and then nitrate, right? so then you remove the fish, the ammonia goes away. suddenly there is nothing for you nitrifying bacteria to feed on, and their numbers start to diminish.

this is why you will see people leaving a shrimp in there to decompose, dosing ammonia daily, or the so called ghost feeding of the tank. to keep adding a source of ammonia for the bacteria to feed off of. no more ammonia, no more food.

Except its possible to establish a cycle without any imput of food like a fish or shrimp. there are plenty of organics within rock to start the cycle. the only way I could see that not happening is if rock were completely sterile and what are the chances of that happening. if you don't believe that I can show you my nitrite test of my 30g that im currently curing rock in & didn't add a shimp or ammonia source, its nitrites are off the chart and have been for the last week, plenty of organics in that rock.

[MondoBongo]

Except its possible to establish a cycle without any imput of food like a fish or shrimp. there are plenty of organics within rock to start the cycle. the only way I could see that not happening is if rock were completely sterile and what are the chances of that happening. if you don't believe that I can show you my nitrite test of my 30g that im currently curing rock in & didn't add a shimp or ammonia source, its nitrites are off the chart and have been for the last week, plenty of organics in that rock.

then why use the fish in the first place? OP was asking about using a fish to start the cycle, not live rock.

even with the live rock it may or may not produce sufficient ammonia for a long enough time period to complete the cycle. depends on the rock.

it's also possible to start with dry rock/sand and have no significant die off, because there is nothing to die off. so you have to take some form of action to kickstart it.