seachem brackish salt

Don't panic PP, it is the older SW version of fishless, normally done with shrimp or crab, but also dead fish by some. It does work, but can - as you guessed - stink fiercely.

I'll pass, thanks anyway. But it does have the advantage of feeding the heterotrophs if live sand, etc. have been added. Akin to home curing of live rock, it is something I can do without if posible.
 
I don't get it. Dead fish always caused my tank to crash. It killed off the nitrifying bacteria.
 
dead fish aren't the same as dead shrimp, theres more bacteria involved in dead shrimp. If added some live rock could that work, I've heard of live rock living in high end BW but have heard so many conflicting stories. However in the mono and scat (juveniles) exhibit at the vancouver aquarium theres is some live rock as well as live sand. Being very high on the research department of aquariums I would expect their exhibits to be accurate.
 
Why can't you just fishless cycle with ammonia. It seems so much easier to monitor.
 
Organic matter will release the same toxins that are used to cycle. If he can stand the smell, this method works just fine. As RTR said, it's maybe displeasing in smell, but the results are the same. Dead fish don't kill off nitrifying bacteria, they cause an increase in the amount in the system, over and above what the bacteria can process immediately.
 
So why did my tank crash when my husband overfed my puffers (people shrimp) while I was on vacation? Even after cleaning out the extra mouldy food & doing a 50% water change, it cycled all over again.
 
Because the levels of ammonia were higher than the existing bacteria bed could handle. It's like juggling. If you have 5 balls in the air, and someone slowly tosses you one more, you can incorporate it into your pattern easily. If someone bombards you with 5 more, you're going to drop them all. The initial bacteria can't handle the increased load, but they don't die.
 
OG - except when the huge increase in bioload causes a pH crash - not rare - which can damage or kill nitrification bacteria. The huge bioload increase also frequently exhausts the oxygen in the water, meaning arrest up to death for fish and nitrification bacteria. The worst cases I have been called in on were both - pH crash with vanishingly low oxygen in the water. Bad situation. Re-cycling would be expected after that. The worse smells come with scenario also - putrescine and cadavarine are not normal household aromas.
 
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