I hate cycling!

personaly I am not a fan of the fish in cycle process it puts unnessicary stress on the fish with high risk of death due to bad params

if it died leave it in the tank it will cause your ammonia spikes and subsequently the nitrite and nitrate toss in a raw shrimp once a week till you are done with all three parts of the intital cycle then add live stuff

no point in killing fish just to cycle a tank when it can be done cheaper and easier with somthing as simple as feeding the tank not a fish

 

Most assuredly it would have been eating had it been healthy .Hell it takes a hammer to kill them especially a 3 strip.. I have used thousand of different Damsels to cycle with I have had more then a few to die in the first few days But hey they die on a reef also and get eaten also.. So to loose one is not really a rare occurrence either..I'd guess at 1 fish in 100 dies, I just get another one to keep it going..

 

I agree with Tazzy, live it in there to rot or just pull them out and let it do its thing.

 

I've had a blue yellow tailed damsel in my tank now for two weeks, he was a bit shy at first but now he loves it in there and shoots like a rocket to the top at feeding time once every other day, he seems healthy at the mo............water params riseing hope he makes it through it.

 

I'll give you odds he will be fine . Its not all as bad as many would want you to think.. I seldom loose one beside look at it like this its a fish period and let those among us that has never ate a fillet of fish sandwich or a tuna salad sandwich or a fish dinner or shrimp crab lobster toss out the first live rock

But think about it he as you say is looking fne and is fine he spends few days and then he lives for yrs fat and sassy worried about nothing and far better then on a reef where he would be lunch for sure sooner or later and have to fight for every bite of food it gets . And your tank will avoid the yo yoing effects of not having a constant and steady bio demand on it your bacteria will come and be rock solid and steady in numbers .. Unlike letting a chunk of food rot in there .

 

I've had a yellow tail for about a year and a half. He's almost bullet proof. He's the only one to make it through 2 seperate cycles, one of those including a complete take down and tank move. He was very aggressive towards his tank mates at first but I added a coral beauty angel who kicked his butt a few times, he settled down.

 

I agree, with the yellow tailed damsel. I used 2 of them to cycle my tank with no problems and they are still alive and eating just fine.

Since we are talking about damsels i have a quick question, my yellow tailed is guarding a rock with little blackish looking dots on it probly around 50 or 60 of them, are those eggs or am i just thinking wrong? Also i know it sounds stupid but how and where do you start a Tag at?

 

When I get my tank up and running, Im going to urinate in the tank to get the cycle started.

Urine makes the cycle in the tank faster, but make sure you wash your hands first.

 

Do what you want but whoever told you that has given you bad information.

 

Hahaha yea i dont think i have ever heard of that before. lol wow some people these days.