Empty Tank Cycling

[adam12]

Wouldn't it be less stressfult if a fishless/rockless cycle was completed before adding the first shipment?

I've looking for opionions on doing this fishless cycle using the ammonia method in conjunction with Biozyme. Any comments?

[Bruddah Chrispy]

Aloha e Adam,

When you add a shipment of live rock you will be increasing the bio-load on the system, forcing it to go into a cycle in order to bring everything back to equilibrium. Even if you have already cycled the tank. Any change in bio-load causes the tank to re-adjust.

That being said, I cycled my tank before ordering my package from TBS. I wanted a deeper sandbed so I put that in, added the water, and then threw in a cocktail shrimp. Not sure if this helped or not, but my TBS package cycled in about 10 days and the ammonia hardly ticked up at all.

The freshwater approach of doing a fishless cycle with ammonia doesn't seem to have many adherents here on RC.

[doliver]

But the point of a cycle is to establish the bacteria to colonize your sand and rock, which then becomes your primary source of filtration. Without rock, they'd have nowhere to live, right?