cycling your tank- which method did you use

I did the live rock, live sand thing. Threw in a pair of damsels and three weeks later was ready for my first mushroom.

My Tank

 

There's plenty of ammonia in urine. It would work fine to kick off a cycle.

 

That being said, I'm going to use live sand (160 lbs) and dry rock. Just for fun, I may put a few fish in my small tank once the worst of the ammonia spike is over with. I think that with such a large volume of water I may not see very high ammonia or nitrite levels. Either that or I might just go ahead and stock the tank.

 

ya don't suppose THAT is what they're selling in those Insta-Cycle bottles all along? heck, i'd pee in your tank for free! lol

 

I cycled with Live rock and a damsel.

 

Hello all.....I haven't been on for awhile, so I thought this was a good place to start. The first thing I learned was "BE PATIENT". I started with live rock and live aragonite. I bought one piece of cultured rock from my local fish store and placed it in my tank. Then I waited, and waited lol. It wasn't long, maybe 10 days to 2 weeks, that I started noticing LIFE. Don't cheat yourself out of the full experience of starting a tank, go slow and let it grow!

Sue

 

with my 20 gallon i purchased aragalive and had just that in the tank for three or four days. then i added fifteen pounds of live rock and two damsels five hermits and two nassarius snails. two weeks later a perc. and clown goby with two additional pounds of rock. and i never once saw a high spike in ammonia or any thing when i added my fish a couple of days later everything went to the right readings with a ph of 8.2

 

I started with live sand and a bottle of Stability. The Stability really kick started things and made the cycle go fast. After a week I added my live rock and then about a week later I added a chromis followed by an ocellaris a week after that.