sounds fair.
What I was aiming for in this thread was simply a collection of the niche in reef cycling where rocks from one tank are moved to another and there is 0% consideration given to the cycle, because we trust it so inherently knowing the origin of a certain segment of rocks we can attain in this hobby.
Confidence in outcome, known start date for the system has always been 100% here (but not in the example threads)
there isn't any type of cycling I was ever shown in print that allowed total confidence on a start date for a reef tank before it was ever assembled. that was always taught as an open-ended and iffy wait time type of cycle. these here are me saying: your cycle was done before you brought the rocks home, you can reef right now, 1 minute after tank setup given all other expected controls a reef needs.
it's neat to keep documenting this one type of cycle as I spot them in posts over and over without fail (intended bioload always lives but a cheap ammonia kit is causing alarm to the keeper) so that reef cyclers can opt for this version of cycling when possible. I consider it the best cycling in reefing due to the biome quality rocks with coralline on them bring into a new tank.
we always use the safety reference of sellers at a reef convention as our marker of reliability: for decades these sellers bring in an empty glass tank, animals packed in holding containers or bags, styrofoam or real coolers packed with live rock from some other tank two states away (it rode to the convention merely in the cooler, sealed off, with no water a majority of the time, sellers know how resilient bacteria are it's the buyers who live in constant stall fear) and they assemble that day 1 right before the convention. it's ready right then to reef fully, the gear they put/trust into these skip cycle reefs is their whole sales inventory for the entire convention, and no sellers have crashes they pull this off because they use different rules than buyers do regarding reef tank cycling.
this thread is an attempt to reveal this assuredness to the buyers. I can spot a skip cycle tank among posts, then I link them back here for retro study/see how the advisor peers in the example threads play between confidence in cycling (like convention sellers for thirty years) or completely fear-ridden buyers who can't sleep well until an api kit gives a hard yellow zero ammonia reading.
even though some readers may not agree on all material written, this thread continues to be a collection of cured live rock transfers, no testing, no bottle bac advised by me, and we track the outcomes for initial bioload carry in the tank. uncycled reefs can't keep animals alive for days, only cycled reefs can do that. since testing is so haphazard among non digital ammonia kit owners, we're using crash/not crashed does carry life for days on end/can't carry life at all as the final marker in whether or not a given set of rocks were truly skip cycle ones as stated. we cannot rely on the public's use of API test kits to determine cycle status.
I'd give anything if more seneye owners would post their nh3 outcomes in this thread when dealing with live rock transfers of any type, the precision that kit gives is the true looking glass into what cycles are doing and within what timeframe.
it is very important for this thread that we never reference any testing of any parameter other than a seneye's nh3 reading once it has been calibrated on a running reef tank for baseline accuracy. if we don't do that, we lose the things that make this thread unique and it will become a standard cycling debate thread. there's no debating whether or not animals keep remaining alive as predicted for four years, I want to remove subjectivity from reef tank cycling just this once. when seneye isn't present to verify outcomes, we revert here to the known origin of the live rock as the final say in whether or not the cycle was a skip cycle via transfer one
