Cycling

[VoodooChild]

I may not be able to get my live rock as soon as I had hoped, thanks to my car. However, I still have the tank all ready to go (30 gal). I was curious as to how well clowns or dwarf lions cycle. I've heard all about this cocktail shrimp method, but that seems to just produce mini-cycles. Any comments? Perhaps I can just buy 10 pounds or so of rock now, let that cycle, and buy more later.

[BrianH]

I would not recommend using fish for a cycle. I do not understand why you think that the shrimp method produces mini cycles?

In another thread I stated that unless you fully stock a tank after a shrimp cycle you will lose some of the biological bacteria that grew during the shrimp cycle. If this is the reason for your opinion I apologize if I gave the impression that a shrimp cycle was bad. I was just adding my point to the discussion of cycling with LR Vs. shrimp. I just wanted to state that while I agreed that doing a shrimp cycle produced the largest amount of bacteria, that bacteria population will decrease if their food source is not high enough to sustain their population. This decrease will not cause a mini cycle as long as your tank finished the cycle and you stock your tank slowly. The bacteria population in your tank will grow to process the added wastes produced by fish as long as you don't overstock and stock slowly. My advise is to add 1 fish per month. This is a very conservative method but, IMHO it gives your tank the opportunity to adjust to the new inhabitant and this gives you more time to research which other fish you wish to add to your tank.
Brian

[OrionGirl]

Neither of the fish you mention will do well in a cycling tank.

I agree with BrianH--no reason not to use the shrimp. It fully cycles your tank to a HIGHER bacterial bed than would just live rock, since the amount of ammonia provided to initiate the cycle is higher than the bio-load would be from one fish (of any kind). You will lose a portion of the bacterial bed as the tank establishes the balance between ammonia production and bacterial beds, but that's not a bad thing. If you cycle a tank using a fish, there will be a mini-cycle each time you add fish, and you're giving the fish gill burns.

[VoodooChild]

Thanks alot for your help. I will heed your advice.