"Arrhae" wrote in message
...

Doesn't that tend to kill your live rock, though, cycling so quickly?

I used this method in a new 5-gallon species tank, containing only
substrate. Take a look at the website for the full story:
http://members.cox.net/gbundersea/aq...on/cycling.htm

I wouldn't use this method in a tank with LR, since I think high ammonia
levels would indeed be detrimental to the rock. Often, the curing of the LR
provides all the ammonia necessary to cycle a tank. If for some reason it
didn't, one could probably supplement it with a small amount of ammonia, but
I definitely wouldn't add a lot.

I just brought my 120-gallon FOWLR online within the last month. I didn't
add any ammonia. Only 5 weeks ago, 250 pounds of FABULOUS live rock from
Gulf-View (www.gulf-view.com) and over 200 lbs of live sand went into the
bare tank. I seeded it with substrate and filter drippings from my
established 29-gallon tank. Ammonia never rose above 0.50 ppm, and along
with nitrites, quickly fell to zero! Nitrates peaked at 40, and 8 days later
had fallen to 20, so the rock, sand, and refugium are obviously working. All
this occurred without my doing ANY water changes!

The 29-gallon was heavily overstocked, due to the fact that 3 of the fish
had grown considerably in the 2-3 years we've had them. After
triple-checking the water parameters, I moved them on 7/20/2003 into the new
tank, only 3 weeks after adding the LR. The fish are doing great!

The live rock from Gulf-View was incredible. We counted at least 9 species
of macroalgae, feather dusters, nudibranchs, tunicates, crabs, bivalves,
sponges, etc, even some Christmas tree worms! We keep finding more stuff. It
has at least 3 species of hard corals on it too. No big colonies, but a fair
number of small clusters. I want to keep all that stuff thriving, so I'm
determined to maintain low nitrates in spite of this being essentially a
fish tank. With the rock, sand, and fuge I think I have a good shot at it. I
started dripping kalk to keep Ca and KH high. I had been using B-Ionic, but
that gets expensive. After reading a whole lot on the subject, I found Mrs.
Wages Pickling Lime for $1.49 a pound. I rigged up a cheap but effective DIY
drip container, and I was in business. So far, so good!


The only time I attempted a fishless cycle it didn't seem to work...just
couldn't get the ammonia levels down...since then I've just preferred used
filter crap and adding fish *sloooowly*...

Not sure why the ammonia wouldn't drop. It did so for me very well in that
small tank, but I also seeded it from my 29, and added some of the "bacteria
in a bottle" just to diversify things. It obviously worked, as my fish moved
in only 22 days after starting the tank from scratch.


Regardless of how you choose to cycle, though, I'd certainly recommend
avoiding damsels as first fish unless you want damsels in that tank until
they die of old age...mollies don't usually require you to break the
entire
tank down to catch them!


Damsels are indeed a pain. I had one, who took over the entire 29-gallon
tank. He was keeping our puffers completely off of the rock, so much that
they started getting an overbite since they couldn't nip on anything to wear
their teeth down. Thankfully, I caught him with little trouble, and found
him a safe new home. Very pretty fish, but bad attitude!