You can cycle with live rock. This is a reef forum so we
assume you are setting up a reef tank. Reef tanks have
live rock.

Now suppose you are wanting to cycle your tank with a
biological filter, and then add live rock later so as to
keep die-of on the live rock to a minimum, then yes you
can do that by adding shrimp, fish food, or just about
anything to the tank to get bacteria growing in the
filter. But don't put so much in that the water stinks.
Just test the water, and maintain low levels of ammonia,
until you have a biological filter that can handle a lot
of food, and then when the ammonia and nitrite are 0, add
the live rock.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



nacree wrote on 10/13/2006 9:58 AM:
I put 2 frozen shrimp (decent size) in my 85 gal aquarium to start the
cycle about 5-6 days ago and now its starting to stink a bit lol.
Think im going to pull them babys out. Anything else work ok, should I
try live rock?