cycling your tank- which method did you use

Of course i cycled my first tank with a yellow tail damsel - well it was a pico, so i actually went through three, the third one surviving!!

 

Black Mollies

 

tried to run a nano tank back in college until my idiot roommate decided to play golf in the apartment. i had cycled with a damsel and the little bugger lived. all is well and good, i'll just fish him out, return him and get my clown, but all was not well. that little b*****d was impossible to catch. after many failed attempts, water all over my desk and a torn up aquascape i finally got the bugger. i'm not proud of it, but i was so pissed at this guy there way no way he was just getting sold back to the shop. little demetri became grouper food. long story short: listen to Mom, spare a damsel AND yourself.

 

I dont think the yellow tailed damsel is that bad, especially by its self. Mine eats any flat worm that might crop up so he's benefical to a degree and they are very blue!

 

At the time before I found this site. I was using the advice of my LFS(their not to bad),and used live rock with 2 blue damsels.everything went smooth,and both damsels turned out to be very friendly till one passed a couple weeks ago out of no where.

 

i first used a yellow tail damsel to cycle my 20 gallon and i believe it was a terrible choice. not because of the fish itself, (he is actually very friendly and a great addition to the tank) but because i got fish fever and within a week of when i believed my cycle was done i had all my fish. now my tank is riddled with numerous hair algaes and overall looks terrible. for my next tank i will just do it with live rock. rushing into this tank killed me. atleast i learned my lesson.

 

I still have my yellowtail damsel. I used all the methods and cycled in less than 2 weeks. Used SeaChem stability. I don't think it really did much hard to tell. Only one live rock to seed some coraline. I had one shrimp in there for about a week.

I would never ever cycle with all live rock... way too many hitchhikers and stuff sneak in the tank. It's hard enough to keep stuff out when you buy a new coral.

As far as hurting the fish during cycle you can do small water changes if the ammonia/nitrite gets high to relieve them. My ammonia or nitrite never got very high.
A Typical Break-In Cycle

 

I cycled my current tank with 4 damsels-2 yellow tail and 2 4 stripe-That was the only way I have ever known-18 years ago when I got into it-thats what you did.
I had to get rid of the 4 stripe months later-they were growing way fast and the 2 yellow tail are still residents. I aslo added 2 bottles of nitrifying bacteria ( Instant Ocean's Biro Spira) to jump start the process.
Tanks cycled in about 3 1/2 weeks

Homage to my little cycling buddy;

 

ok, possible gross out alert, faint of heart look away. i was recently talking to a dude at the LFS (not a working, just a dude) and he told me that the best way to cycle a tank is to simply take a leak in it. ok dude, first off, way to share WAAAAY too much info with some guy you met 2 minutes ago and secondly, how on earth did you get that idea in your head? thoughts anyone?

 

How does he think the body fluid in urine will help in a tank cycle. I think I would have posted something more realistic.
Ghost