silly question on fishless cycling for OG and others.

It is not a silly question, it is perfectly valid.

Fishless cycling is aimed only at the nitrification bacteria. The rest of the bacterial species, the heterotpohic bacteria and other larger tiny critters (infusoria as a general term) are of secondary interest. So FW folks are happy to be able do a simple, measured proceedure with tests to show them clearly when the process is complete. It does not stink either.

You can cycle any tank with fish food, a dead fish, a shrimp, whatever. So long as the starting material is organic, it will feed the nitrification bacteria and fungi and heterotrophs. But when you use such raw materials the testing is less clear or controlled, the end point the same, and your house may smell as if something died there (which is of course exactly the case).

Personal choice, but for me I'll use ammonia - simple, clean, and controlled.

Fish food

I have read that one can also use fish food to begin the cycle. Simply feed the empty tank the same amount of food that you expect to feed the eventual fish load. It decays, even without the fish in the middle of the process, into ammonia.

I suspect it would result in the exact amount of bacteria you need to process the food you will eventually be using, so you might reach your endpoint faster than adding what could be more ammonia than your fish load would generate. (Just guessing here.)

how often do you feed it? once? daily? weekly?

Using food

What I read was that you feed it about what you would feed the fsih. A pinch. Daily.

One of the big problems I see with fishless cycling using decaying shrimp, fishfood, etc., is that you don't really know what amount of ammonia your tank can process. When you fishless cycle, dosing ammonia at 5 ppm, your tank is pretty much able to handle about any fish load that you throw at it. When you use a shrimp or flakes of fish food, how much of a bioload will the biofilter support? One fish? Ten? Fifteen? You just don't know, and you'll be putting your fish at unnecessary risk (IMO) when you add them, because the tank may experience a minicycle anyway.

Dosing with ammonia affords you much more control over the capacity of the biofilter.

Jim