Open challenge for the hobby: prove that fish-in cycles harm fish.

[brandon429]

also hope this thread reflects upon the hobby's inability to perform basic ammonia measures accurately, that is a key alarm here in my opinion

the reason few agree on fish-in cycling details is because we're all using test kits that can read free ammonia where there isnt any, and googling any particular name brand will show it.

contrast that to the few devices that measure ammonia digitally, how many can we find that ever posted .2ppm free nh3 at any phase of the cycle, even at the start? I bet there are 6 thousand seneye users, find and post 1 single data log showing a .1 or a .2, Ill wait



the data is that skewed. Updated ammonia measurement tools like seneye, hach lab nh3 meters, never agree our tanks hit and maintain tenths ppm free ammonia but we've all built our microbiology concepts on that happening routinely.

what we really need is good cheap ammonia test kits in the hobby. and then we'll know if fish in cycling harms fish, as people continue to fish in cycle as the new way of reefing we'd better get ready for. dont be caught making up stuff about filter bacteria, benthic or in suspension, we'll look unprepared.

 

[Pntbll687]

Anytime someone adds bottle bac + fish on day one, we tell them unequivocally that they're harming fish/ammonia burned

I think that's false, and that ammonia burned fish act a certain way. so lets find a way to prove one way or another and end the false info spreading.

So if you've ever posted to another person that fish-in cycles are harming fish, how do you know? groupthink?

If we took an ammonia reading during the fish-in cycle and it showed some free ammonia yet the fish behaved well, fed well, swam normally, didnt die after days in the claimed burn condition, and we can find the same test kit indicating free ammonia in other fully matured reefs, does that mean fish-in cycling burns fish?


additional questions before anyone can prove anything here: whats the maximum nh3 typical clownfish and gobies can tolerate in marine systems?

are the ammonia testers we use in the hobby able to reliably measure those levels?



Fish-in cycling harms disease vectoring, for sure. But burning animals? are these burnt?

Bio-spira works great

I just started a new tank a little over a week ago. I started with all dry rock and new sand. I added a bottle of Bio-Spira and put fish and coral the same day. Never saw any ammonia and fish and coral seem healthy.

www.reef2reef.com

This is a terrible, and probably borderline unethical experiment that no one should take on.

What we do know
1. Ammonia kills fish
2. Fish produce ammonia through waste
3. Without a sufficient bacteria population ammonia will build up in the water
4. At some point the ammonia will become toxic to fish. Now the exact point at which it is poisonous to fish may vary and could be up for debate

It is very easy to conclude that someone COULD add fish day one with some bottled bacteria, and with enough bacteria they could keep ammonia low enough for fish to survive. Now what exactly a "low enough" level of ammonia is, I don't know, and don't really care to find out.

 

[jda]

^ don't forget to add number five that we apparently don't have even decent tools to even try and do a good job.

 

[brandon429]

Why aren't fish showing systemic toxicity symptoms paintball

Your summary of effects of free ammonia makes my case nicely. You skipped past the part about you, or us, not having tools to measure free ammonia accurately and what you state is the risk, failed fish in cycle, hasn't been shown one time here.

If you do a search for fish in cycles, you get success as the search return, fish showing no toxicity, not being burned. I expect quick death in any system with fish unable to control ammonia, within 72 hrs specifically, and not as a surprise creep up after day ten. Page three, no proof that fish in cycles harm fish, no links to harmed fish. Counter proof: after baiting, still can't find a failed fish- in cycle. I looked before typing that heh

Did a cursory 5 year search over basic forum posts for fish in cycles and all of them show no toxicity from the fish or corals, if we agree those animals can't tolerate free ammonia above .02 ppm not .2

I do see posts for failed fish cycles: they consist of happy fish, feeding and swimming, and api or red sea sending the alert. there's a fail out there though somewhere, without seneye Im not sure we can prove it wasnt an acclimation error.

To prove fish-in cycling harms fish is to directly prove a million-dollar bottle bac industry as false, invalid, sells snake oil doesnt work.

They were able to sell us water bacteria, I credit them very little for the accomplishment. we have yet to catch up on how to measure if what they sell is real or not

Dr Reef does not have this problem

 

[brandon429]

On any cycling chart, does Ammonia rise back up after day ten, when it shows to be going down to zero/ safe zone

post a cycling chart where ammonia holds, at .5 ppm or .25

not one single cycling chart ever written shows that, its from the realm of forum broscience only.

That history trending for ammonia control helps, when accurate measures are lacking

It means once we're past lethality timeframes, however long animals can live without nh3 control, few days max, a cycle doesn't get weak or undo because that chart is for activated surface area and we use a bunch

pair up what we know about ammonia from basic cycling charts, and Dr Reefs bottle bac study showing each brand adhering to surfaces within a few days max, we have a picture of what ammonia does without having to guess. add in the healthy fish, number of posts it takes to find a bad outcome, and you can tell something new is underway.

This thread is simply a review of major concepts we all accept, that don't really line up with what we can see in each tank that does fish-in cycling.

 

[blasterman]

The state-of-the-art regarding cycling has progressed significantly. Many professionals have posted YouTube videos (BRS, ReefBuilders, etc.) demonstrating bacteria in a bottle to virtually immediately cycle a tank. The popular (albeit relatively expensive products) include Fritz TurboStart 900, Microbacter XLM, Dr, Tim's One and Only, etc. My current build is a 130 gallon DT. Day one after adding water I added Fritz TurboStart 900. Next day, fish (2 clowns, 1 wrasse). Why? Because the TurboStart populated the tank with nitrifying bacteria and they needed waste to eat or they will die. There was NEVER any measurable ammonia or nitrites. The science is straight forward and the products have been developed over the years to be effective and safe. Surely, you may continue to cycle other ways, but don't judge people beause they follow a different path.

Seriously......

BRS has actually shown that dry cycled tanks using bottled bacteria are far less stable than new tanks establushed using live rock.

I don't get it. Reefers are too dumb to buy some LR, but will buy bottled bacteria. I also find it more than hypocritical we worry about low ammonia toxicity when we buy fish caught on a reef that are stunned with cyanide.

 

[dbl]

Why do we feel it necessary to rush through a cycle (fish or fishless) knowing we are starting what should be the enjoyment of a long term hobby? We should be reiterating the need for patience not rapidity.

 

[brandon429]

we have been offering that, but nobody is listening. I think its because they do it once, and then again on another tank, and it keeps working.

in my cycling thread/ microbiology of reef tank cycling/ we turned out about thirty pages of cycled reefs not using any test kits, using the timing stated prior. probably eighty or so cycled tanks on file, updated doing fine.

Some of those were bottle bac skip cycles, most are skip cycle live rock transfers and in not one case did I tell them to add fish before completing fallow which already buys a 76 day delay after cycle verified/

as you can see though, fish-in cycling isnt about the wait, and companies have made products to address that, just like they made products that sped up our song downloads from 45 mins for 5 megs to eight seconds for a thirty meg track. moores law of reef cycling in full effect, cycle waits are so 1997. says every reef convention that made 500 reefs show up on time, ready, to house fifty thousand in rare animals in a rock solid speed cycle (no convention owners are dumb enough to trust 50K in animals to a risky cycle) --- a speed cycle isnt weaker than a waited one. its why all fish-in cycling posts turn out ok that I can find.

it turns out that convention tank owners already know a speed cycle is the same ability/power/resilience of the carefully-waited out 45 day cycle from 1997.

I write threads specifically about the legitimacy of skipping a reef cycle altogether, so that people are able to attend conventions if applicable or they can use known cycle science to transport, clean or upgrade a reef and not kill it. Its not about rushing, its about being exact and telling all newcomers that paid for 5 day bottle bac they have to wait 20 more days is also incorrect and quite dated info nobody listens to. We should advise of the disease risk and put emphasis on that, not the cycling risk, there appears to not be one.

Before doing fish-in cycles, new reefers should verify their bottle bac efficacy with a pre-test first using the calibrated approach from prior post above.

 

[I’ma tempermental coral]

So I’m in the Patience pays off category here myself and will not add fish until I see that ammonia can be safely nitrified. That said I have a genuine question for all those that staunchly fight this topic.

Postulate a tank emergency. You have no other cycled system to put your fish in. The system the fish are coming from was polluted by something that renders zero ability to transfer bio active material from the running system to your emergency tank.

Are you people going to honestly tell me you wouldn’t be running to your lfs for some bottled bacteria to instant cycle your emergency tank to save your fish?

 

[brandon429]

indeed I would, an emergency setup/

and the two brands Id aim for are: Fritz, bc Dr Reef found that to transfer from suspension after dosing to all benthic surfaces within 24 hours, fastest one. (meaning he dosed a full dry tank with Fritz, fed some ammonia/food/ changed out all the water next day, retested, it nitrified because bac were truly adhered, this is cycled though we waited 1 day)

second was biospira, from Ike's thread, where he started a whole darn reef with corals eight fish and anemone on day one and its approaching a year later and all is well. That was the most rule breaking Id ever seen in reefing, so I love that thread as a harbinger for what's a coming down the line whether we like or not.

always find problems with this ratio: cycle problems are only for forum posters, they never happen in the places where we are sold things by other reefers, who use different rules, to decide when they can reef. That ability alters who is the seller and who is the buyer, in any arrangement.

The #1 benefit to using updated cycle science is keeping our own money and not getting tricked over what bac do/tolerate

 

[Flippers4pups]

Why do we feel it necessary to rush through a cycle (fish or fishless) knowing we are starting what should be the enjoyment of a long term hobby? We should be reiterating the need for patience not rapidity.

Totally agree with you! In all due respect to you @brandon429, I'm not exactly understanding your point with all of this. I've read all the comments thus far.

There so no need to explore rapid cycling as it's been proven thousands of times.

I will say this about fish in tank cycling, which was the norm back in the eighties and early nineties, which isn't ever needed now, there was a great deal of morbidity with this method. The idea was to use "throw away" fish as the cyclers. Damsels in particular. The health of the fish at the time of purchase had a great deal to do with wether or not it survived the cycle.

Your experiment does not take this into account.

All of this makes my brain hurt as it's just not needed now. In all due respect.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Why do we feel it necessary to rush through a cycle (fish or fishless) knowing we are starting what should be the enjoyment of a long term hobby? We should be reiterating the need for patience not rapidity.

This is what I feel as well. I will throw in my two cents. (Remember, I’m broke ;Woot )

I only know 3 ways to cycle a tank. Here they are in order from absolute best to worst.

1. Buy live rock from a reliable vendor or source directly harvested from the ocean. Pay the money to get it shipped 1-2 day air packed wet and put right into your tank. Your tank is ready to go as is. You may have die off of the macros on the rock and hitch hikers, but you are starting fish only to deal with those things. Hang an ammonia badge for safety. See my 60 build, no cycle, no fish loss.

2. Set up a tank completely, less fish. Ghost feed or throw in a shrimp and wait.

3. set up the tank and cycle with damsels. Least desirable. We do not do this any more, please don’t.

With getting the rock from the ocean you have greater chance for biodiversity. Who knows what you get in a bottle and what strains they have. It would be interesting a few months after cycle that has been with bottled bac for a tank owners to send in a water sample for testing to get their bio diversity test thru aquabiomics. See how it compares to a tank started with true live rock

 

[Fisheroo]

Anytime someone adds bottle bac + fish on day one, we tell them unequivocally that they're harming fish/ammonia burned

I think that's false, and that ammonia burned fish act a certain way. so lets find a way to prove one way or another and end the false info spreading.

So if you've ever posted to another person that fish-in cycles are harming fish, how do you know? groupthink?

If we took an ammonia reading during the fish-in cycle and it showed some free ammonia yet the fish behaved well, fed well, swam normally, didnt die after days in the claimed burn condition, and we can find the same test kit indicating free ammonia in other fully matured reefs, does that mean fish-in cycling burns fish?


additional questions before anyone can prove anything here: whats the maximum nh3 typical clownfish and gobies can tolerate in marine systems?

are the ammonia testers we use in the hobby able to reliably measure those levels?



Fish-in cycling harms disease vectoring, for sure. But burning animals? are these burnt?

Bio-spira works great

I just started a new tank a little over a week ago. I started with all dry rock and new sand. I added a bottle of Bio-Spira and put fish and coral the same day. Never saw any ammonia and fish and coral seem healthy.

www.reef2reef.com

I don’t think this one even needs any research. Anyone who has tried a fish-in cycle knows that the fish display behavior obviously indicating suffering- for ex., I was transferring my fish/shrimp to a larger tank as the tank it was currently in was much too small. Due to extremely limited space, I was unable to keep both tanks set up at once thus unable to keep my fish in its current tank as the other cycled. I transferred all substrate, decorations, and tank equipment from the previous tank to the new tank (to help introduce additional beneficial bacteria), added bottled bacteria (Seachem Stability), double-dosed Seachem Prime every other day (in additional to dechorinating water, it can effectively be used to convert ammonia into the less-harmful ammonium, which makes the tank safer while the bacteria colony builds up), acclimated my fish and shrimp, and added them to the water. I kept a very close eye on them during this entire time, reduced feeding to once every other day to prevent excessive ammonia buildup, and continues feeding them their healthy varied diet of crisps, flakes, algae wafers, mysis shrimp, bloodworms, and river shrimp. I also added Kent Garlic Extreme to their food to boost immunity. In short, I did everything anyone possibly could to keep them as safe and healthy as possible. However, after just a week my shrimp started behaving very strangely- hiding behind the heater and refusing to come out for feeding time. In response, I did a water change (which I did once or twice a week throughout the cycle). A few days later, I found the shrimp dead fully intact (I quote intact to support the fact that he died from water quality rather than my fish bothering it). A few days later, my fish started acting very lethargic and refused to eat. A during the few times he would move during the day, he’d scratch himself up on decorations swimming very erratically. It got so bad that he was covered and scrapes and I had to remove said decorations and added stress coat to help heal his fins. I continued adding bottled bacteria every day but he eventually developed fin rot and died.

So, no, fish-in cycling is outdated and never a good idea. Even if the fish do survive, it causes obvious and unnescessary suffering. It also might be worth mentioning that many fish do display red gills during cycling, which supports the fact that fish do get ammonia burns.

 

[brandon429]

@Flippers4pups , they didnt have bottle bac back then. if API did have some, it wasnt widely used, thats a 2000s product for the massive use we're reflecting upon here.

that was rough unassisted cycling like how john wayne did it

apples v oranges

but Ill raise you this: in the 80s Id add water, wait the times shown on cycle charts, add fish, they lived. no test still. bac came in from the environment, feed got in by the way it always gets in nonsterile bodies of water, and the systems self cycled just fine but this was freshwater where natural inoculants are abundant. Marine systems will do that too, but it takes longer.


Fully unassisted fish-in cycling, no boosters, would indeed have an ammonia up curve, these are all bottle bac cycles we cover here



My main offer is that fish-in cycling isnt harming fish, and on page 20 nobody will have linked proof otherwise.

 

[brandon429]

@Fisheroo

You did the transfer wrong potentially... here's 35 pages of us doing them with no recycles and again, no Ammonia testing and certainly no bottle bac, we're against bottle bac use there below because that's a symptom of doubt + hesitation in the reefer when dealing with already activated substrates.

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

Not only do I love that job, I did it in my vase :) so it’s been modeled already/ done your job is just bigger. I’m going to link a thread where nobody listens regarding aiptasia removal, apply this to your mushroom tank. the sand cleaning is already covered here / ridding newly cleaned rocks...

www.reef2reef.com

That's about 200 examples of skip cycle tank transfer biology, rock solid.

 

[Alenya]

You’re talking about the effectiveness of bottled bacteria - which ‘is’ jumping to the end of the cycle.

A fish in cycle is using the fish to generate ammonia to start to produce bacteria. Ie no cycled media at all.

They are two different things and I find your suggestion to conduct experiments on fish to determine their suffering, disturbing - we already know fish in cycling is unkind.

As far as cleaning sand beds goes as some kind of evidence - why would they need a recycle? Established tanks have a large population of bacteria on the glass, rocks and every surface. Unlike a new tank, a mature tank has a lot of bacteria metabolising slowly - a sand clean would strip population and the remaining bacteria would metabolise faster to compensate.

Claiming this somehow proves your hypothesis that waiting for a cycle in new tanks in unnecessary is a bit of a jump.

 

[I’ma tempermental coral]

I don’t think this one even needs any research. Anyone who has tried a fish-in cycle knows that the fish display behavior obviously indicating suffering- for ex., I was transferring my fish/shrimp to a larger tank as the tank it was currently in was much too small. Due to extremely limited space, I was unable to keep both tanks set up at once thus unable to keep my fish in its current tank as the other cycled. I transferred all substrate, decorations, and tank equipment from the previous tank to the new tank (to help introduce additional beneficial bacteria), added bottled bacteria (Seachem Stability), double-dosed Seachem Prime every other day (in additional to dechorinating water, it can effectively be used to convert ammonia into the less-harmful ammonium, which makes the tank safer while the bacteria colony builds up), acclimated my fish and shrimp, and added them to the water. I kept a very close eye on them during this entire time, reduced feeding to once every other day to prevent excessive ammonia buildup, and continues feeding them their healthy varied diet of crisps, flakes, algae wafers, mysis shrimp, bloodworms, and river shrimp. I also added Kent Garlic Extreme to their food to boost immunity. In short, I did everything anyone possibly could to keep them as safe and healthy as possible. However, after just a week my shrimp started behaving very strangely- hiding behind the heater and refusing to come out for feeding time. In response, I did a water change (which I did once or twice a week throughout the cycle). A few days later, I found the shrimp dead fully intact (I quote intact to support the fact that he died from water quality rather than my fish bothering it). A few days later, my fish started acting very lethargic and refused to eat. A during the few times he would move during the day, he’d scratch himself up on decorations swimming very erratically. It got so bad that he was covered and scrapes and I had to remove said decorations and added stress coat to help heal his fins. I continued adding bottled bacteria every day but he eventually developed fin rot and died.

So, no, fish-in cycling is outdated and never a good idea. Even if the fish do survive, it causes obvious and unnescessary suffering. It also might be worth mentioning that many fish do display red gills during cycling, which supports the fact that fish do get ammonia burns.

Okay I’m sorry but there are WAY to many inconsistencies here. I’m not going to sit here and pick you apart I’m sure someone else will but you added too many dangerous variables all on your own. I’m sorry for your loss.

 

[Fisheroo]

@Fisheroo

You did the transfer wrong potentially... here's 35 pages of us doing them with no recycles and again, no Ammonia testing and certainly no bottle bac, we're against bottle bac use there below because that's a symptom of doubt + hesitation in the reefer.

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

Not only do I love that job, I did it in my vase :) so it’s been modeled already/ done your job is just bigger. I’m going to link a thread where nobody listens regarding aiptasia removal, apply this to your mushroom tank. the sand cleaning is already covered here / ridding newly cleaned rocks...

www.reef2reef.com

That's about 200 examples of skip cycle biology, rock solid

I should’ve mentioned this was a freshwater tank, not my marine tank, but I believe my reasoning on the harmful effects of fish-in cycling apply all the same. Here’s a picture for reference:

 

[brandon429]

Fisheroo thank you for that update. Freshwater is sooo reversed! Nitrite becomes the killer, ammonia isnt a big deal at your pH levels, your tank transfer even if done right sure might have variances to the ways we transfer marine setups. Nice clarification and nice tank after it settles I bet it’s sharp. I like swords and breeding livebearers very much.

freshwater runs opposite chemistry risks to marine setups, what a minefield lol

 

[Alenya]

ammonia isnt a big deal at your pH levels

He never mentioned his pH levels.