What method(s) have you used to cycle a new saltwater aquarium?

[Sun357]

I cycled mine with live rock and live sand. It worked out fine for me and I plan on doing the same with any future tanks.

~Fred

[KingChris444]

Went over to my friends house who has a reef tank and took his water from his water change. Then used live sand and rock, then added the rest of the tank with new salt mix.

[katymunoz]

While some may disagree with me, I never cycled my tank at all. At least not to the point that it was ever noticeable and I tested my ammonia and nitrate daily, neither of them got over zero.

I took 60 lbs of dry rock, that was in my tank with live sand for one week. I then added 60 lbs of someone's live rock that was getting out of reefing after 6 years. I also took a bunch of her livestock, even though i was apprehensive about it. So after 2 weeks of setting up my 110 gallon tank, I had 6 fish in there, and a whole clean up crew. Never had one spike. It took about 4 months for the coraline algae to take off, but never had an brown algae bloom or anything like that. Maybe I just got lucky though.....

[fishnerd1]

I used a mixture of Marco dry rock and dead Pukani from BRS. Added a piece of LR for lfs and sat back. Watched the NH3, NO2 and NO3 go through their spikes before starting water changing. After about 6-7 weeks the NH3 and NO2 were down to zero and the life from the piece of lr was starting to bloom. Completed the install of my DT, moved the mostly cured rock, added fresh sand and waited another 4 weeks before adding a starting cuc along with some chromis. Never saw a spike in NH3 or NO2 with the livestock additions but my total system volume is about 300g. Slow addition of about 1 specimen per month and have yet to see a cycle beyond the first cure.

[blasterman]

While some may disagree with me, I never cycled my tank at all.

Not at all. If you take live rock or sand from a tank with a good bio-load, this live rock or sand will have lots of bacteria in it and chances are you'll never see a spike in your tank. By all means this is the most stable and most preferred way of cycling a tank.

However, lots of reefers buy LR from a tank at the pet store with no fish in it. They get it home, stock it up, and get a cycle. Well, gee....is it that complicated to figure out why that happened?

"Cycling" simply means the flora of ammonia/nitrite reducing bacteria in your tank hasn't been able to adjust/grow to consume the levels of ammonia/nitrite being produced. Real simple.

However, there are times you need to start from fresh with dry / dead rock, and using fish to do it like the old days is cruel, and using inverts takes forever (along with the rotting shrimp). Adding ammonia to start things off in this case is the quickest and most bullet proof method I've used.

[Smity]

My previous tanks I have always used live rock only but recently on my 40 gallon I used Dr. Tims one and only and some chromis. Seemed to work great in a couple days. Atleast the ammonia part, still had some nitrates untill recently.

[Graffiti Reef]

10 years ago when I was new to the scene my LFS gave me 3 damselfish, crushed coral, a bio wheel filter, and some nice peices of live rock and told me to test everyday until the perems were where they needed to be. I was new and didnt really know anything else so I went along with it. THANKFULLY the perems never got high and the tank cycled in less than a week, due mostly to the LR. I now know this isnt the best way to go. So with my new tank I just started, Im doing a DSB so I got some nice base rock and a couple really good pieces of LR. I'm hoping for a short or skipped cycle. I may go back to the LFS and get some live sand from their tanks.

[Spanko]

Wrote this for another site. Have posted it a couple of times since. My take on cycling.

A good number of posts that have to do with cycling are mostly concerned with things like “how can I start my cycle”, “Is my cycle over”, “I am reading nitrites and nitrates but never saw ammonia”, and a myriad of other questions related to the initial set up of a bio filtering system. While knowledge of what, why and how cycling is important, there are some other considerations that should go along with the set up of a new marine aquarium.
First what is cycling? “The nitrogen cycle of an aquarium is a chain reaction in nature resulting in the birth of various types of nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria, each with their own job to do. The three components involved to make this happen are ammonia (NH³ or NH³+4), nitrite (NO²), and nitrate (NO³). In general the nitrogen cycling process usually takes about 30 days, but there is no exact time frame for this process to complete its task, as each aquarium is different. Factors such as how many fish, other livestock, and organic matter is present in the tank can vary the completion time, one way or the other. Testing your aquarium water during cycling is very important, as this will tell you what phase the aquarium is in at any given time throughout the process.”
Okay so academia has told us what the cycle is. We will not get into the details of this anymore than that for this discussion. What is important to note however are the statements “Factors such as how many fish, other livestock, and organic matter is present in the tank can vary the completion time, one way or the other. Testing your aquarium water during cycling is very important, as this will tell you what phase the aquarium is in at any given time throughout the process.”
So what we will discuss here is the source of that organic matter and the actual process that we follow in cycling an aquarium. All inclusive, probably not, but at least a basis from which to make some decisions. So let’s start off with;


HARD CYCLING
If there is a standard in cycling a marine tank this is probably it. Get a glass box, put in some substrate, rockwork if you desire, saltwater and throw in a source of organic matter. This organic matter can range from live rock, fish, fish food, cocktail shrimp, ammonia, all the way up to someone urinating in the tank. (Please don’t pee in your tank) After the organic matter has been introduced the aquarist is advised to perform ammonia and nitrite testing to watch for the “cycle”. No filtering, no water changes, no skimmer, no lights, just let it rip. Without regard to the levels of ammonia or nitrite reached the aquarist was told that once the ammonia and nitrite spiked then went back to zero, low and behold your cycle is complete. Do a water change and begin to add critters, usually a small cleanup crew and over the course of the next few weeks they could start to add fish and or corals all the while watching for ammonia to spike again. If it did spike there were of course certain reactions that were needed along with the verbal abuse that sometimes came along with doing things too soon.
Over the history of starting a marine tank it became unpopular to use fish as the source of the organic matter because of the toxic or deadly levels of ammonia that occur in the tank during the cycle. Certainly this was inhumane and torturous to said fish and of course the bashing of new people for using fish began, even though this was the norm in the beginning. After a time It became common knowledge that there was in fact enough of the organic matter needed on live rock to facilitate the cycling process. This led to live rock becoming the standard by which most new people are instructed to start their tanks with.
So capitalism being what it is, retailers dealing in pet supplies see the opportunity here and start to get in large orders of rock from the ocean. Then in an effort to “help” the new aquarist along they begin to sell differing qualities of live rock. Where it comes from does not matter for this discussion but the fact is that you can purchase uncured live rock for one price and cured live rock for another higher price. The difference here being that the uncured live rock is “straight from the ocean, boxed up and shipped to the retailer and available to the aquarist fresh from the ocean water”. Then for some additional cost the retailer will perform some magic to the rock called curing. This entails the retailer keeping the live rock in bins at their facility, cleaning the rock of any decayed matter that has accumulated from the source through the delivery, water changes etc. etc. etc. so that the aquarist gets pure rock with no nasty die-off that may cause an ammonia spike in their tanks. This cured rock has the nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria already in place and can be used in a new setup as a ready to …..um……rock (hee hee) addition to the tank. Of course there is always some amount of die-off even in cured rock that will continue to deteriorate and produce ammonia, however there may be enough bacteria on the rock itself to take care of it. The only thing, in theory, that the aquarist needs to be concerned about is the additional bio load he\she puts into the tank and the subsequent increase in bacteria needed to convert it. All good, all nice using cured rock should help to reduce the amount of time that is necessary to have an up and running marine tank. We’ll just leave it like that for now. So on to the;


SOFT CYCLE
Now let’s talk a little about uncured rock. Rock taken right from the ocean, whether from an established reef or from an area that has had dry rock dropped into it with the goal of establishing it as live rock. This uncured rock comes to the retailer fresh from the ocean and is then shipped to local fish stores or in some cases direct to the aquarist with all of the life and the subsequent death on it. Some fish stores may turn it into cured rock hoping to get the higher price that cured rock demands. Or they may sell it as uncured rock. Some aquarists may put it directly into their aquarium to “cycle with” or they may cure it outside of the tank so that they can use it later. Some may cure or use it to cycle their tanks as noted above in a hard cycle where no consideration is given to how high the ammonia and nitrites get. This hard cycle kills off some if not most of the life on the rock they paid a premium to get. Remember it is less costly than cured live rock, however it is more expensive than dry rock that can be used in our tanks and just seeded with a pc. or two of live rock.
Soft cycling is a method by which the attempt is to retain as much life as possible on the nice live rock you paid a premium for. It starts the same as a hard cycle, get a glass box, add some substrate if desired, add the live rock and the saltwater. Here is where things change though. During a soft cycle the aquarist is advised to run the filters, skimmers, lights. He\she is also to monitor ammonia on a daily if not twice per day basis and if the ammonia is shown to rise to a reading of .5 they are to immediately perform a water change. And every time thereafter when they see a reading of ammonia at .5 boom, another water change. Keep the skimmer cup emptied, Keep the filter floss, pads etc clean. Do everything they can to keep ammonia below that magic .5 reading. Because you see. Live rock contains ….. er…..well…..life. And in a soft cycle we are trying are hardest to keep that life……um……live! You would be amazed at the life that will flourish under these conditions. Sponges, feather dusters, snails, plant, corals, worms, pods etc. etc. etc. all of the things that we are trying to replicate in our small glass boxes. All for a little more work and a little more expense, to get closer to a small system that more resembles the ocean that it originated in.
Soft cycling is not for everyone. Some of us require a more antiseptic looking reef tank. But for those of us that wish to observe life as it exists, both the good and the bad, soft cycling may be something that you want to look into on your next, or even first setup.
Thank you for reading, I hope I have given some information to think about.

[Paul b]

I don't remember what the heck I did or if I did anything

[jamey1010]

Originally Posted by Paul b

I don't remember what the heck I did or if I did anything

lol and Spanko obviously hasn't seen "Tanked"

Step 1.) garden hose
Step 2.) add fish
Step 3.) Enjoy !

[andrewjwatson]

Just pee in the tank to add ammonia lol. I have heard of people doing this.

[carlitofishguy]

gross...that is just gross. lol

[Paul b]

I don't even let my fish pee in the tank

[katymunoz]

Originally Posted by andrewjwatson

Just pee in the tank to add ammonia lol. I have heard of people doing this.

*sigh* Guys....... Doesn't surprise me.......

[jpadams555]

Thanks a lot for the advice i was peeing in my tank and fell off the ladder now my tank wont cycle and my arm hurts