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

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RobB'z Reef

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Be disappointed if you like. But there isn't any harm in the discussion and exchange of ideas
It certainly follows the current culture of PC, conformance, going against group think and general intolerance of disagreeing with anyone these days lol. Lots of history being forgotten with the new war on words.

@brandon429 you usually have some thought provoking ideas and you have had a level of success for some time, that is clear. I think you could probably afford a 20 gallon tank and help lead the charge on your valid hypothesis. It may inspire other more advanced reefers to confirm and add to your objective results. Never stop the free flow of ideas and information.
 

Arabyps

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It certainly follows the current culture of PC, conformance, going against group think and general intolerance of disagreeing with anyone these days lol. Lots of history being forgotten with the new war on words.

@brandon429 you usually have some thought provoking ideas and you have had a level of success for some time, that is clear. I think you could probably afford a 20 gallon tank and help lead the charge on your valid hypothesis. It may inspire other more advanced reefers to confirm and add to your objective results. Never stop the free flow of ideas and information.
Help me with this because I am getting confused. I am not sure what you want @brandon429 to prove. There is ample empirical evidence in the community that cycling using bacteria-in-a-bottle (when used correctly) does not harm fish. In fact it is a safe and effective way for cycling. There does not appear to be evidence it harms fish (when done correctly). When I say correctly, the bacteria needs to be viable (i.e. you can't store it for months and expect it to work; store it at high temperatures, etc.).
 

RobB'z Reef

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Help me with this because I am getting confused. I am not sure what you want @brandon429 to prove. There is ample empirical evidence in the community that cycling using bacteria-in-a-bottle (when used correctly) does not harm fish. In fact it is a safe and effective way for cycling. There does not appear to be evidence it harms fish (when done correctly). When I say correctly, the bacteria needs to be viable (i.e. you can't store it for months and expect it to work; store it at high temperatures, etc.).
I'm not really asking him to prove anything... I was just offering some friendly advice to help him interact with other people who are rather averse to his ideas. I just find the discussion interesting, I've no real interest or strong opinions on the hypothesis one way or the other.
 
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brandon429

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why did you put a reef in that
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it would indeed garner more buy-ins to lead with the proof ran by me agreed

but anyone who has cycled a tank with me already knows what the proof is, happy fish n corals :)

I want skeptics to do all the testing and report back.
 
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brandon429

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why did you put a reef in that
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I want us to not ignore facts that lead to alternate takeaways from what happens in fish-in cycling. That doesnt mean I think rushing with fish is safe, its a disease risk. Im amazed that a group of thousands of fish keepers watch fish in cycles take place and claim harm, we all know how sensitive these fish are and errors regarding free ammonia have no allowance for safety in anyones literature, we dont need tests to see that aspect imo.


any animal enduring kidney failure shows it, including sensitive tiny reef fish. An aquarium that can't control ammonia is presenting its bioload with the same effects as kidney loss/inability to regulate nh3 and that has a cost in living cells, and they show it collectively

I like when repeating clues from the postverse unfold to challenge hardfast rules in place
 

mtfish

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Al right then. Lay out your experiment in detail. What parameters will you look at precisely. What will be the "proof" that you will determine. I don't mean peers like other hobbyist, I mean peer review that you would go through to publish a paper in a real scientific journal, just like you advance. I just don't see how you will come to a conclusion on the way you asked the question. It is like asking if something causes cancer. What other variables come into play? How long will you keep the study going to determine if it does or not? I guess my real question after this long post is why? Just because you can do an experiment, doesn't mean you should. Why would you want to "possibly" hurt an animal if it is not necessary to start up an aquarium. Seems to me you are taking one step forward and two steps back.
 

NashobaTek

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When I started the cycle of my 125 I used Ace hardware ammonia and bottled bacteria.
I had a high ammonia level up until 3 weeks in. At which point it started dropping. I also had a ammonia alert badge for back up.
There's no way I would put any kind of sea life in a tank that had high ammonia levels. Once I was able to zero the ammonia I in less than 12 hours I felt comfortable adding the fish.

I had saltwater aquariums back in the 70-80's so yes I know all about the fish in cycle. My question is how many damsels died because of that?
 

sixty_reefer

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When I started the cycle of my 125 I used Ace hardware ammonia and bottled bacteria.
I had a high ammonia level up until 3 weeks in. At which point it started dropping. I also had a ammonia alert badge for back up.
There's no way I would put any kind of sea life in a tank that had high ammonia levels. Once I was able to zero the ammonia I in less than 12 hours I felt comfortable adding the fish.

I had saltwater aquariums back in the 70-80's so yes I know all about the fish in cycle. My question is how many damsels died because of that?

could it be that something was wrong with the bacteria bottle? Wend done right there is no spike in amônia, unless you where dosing amônia separately.
 

swiss1939

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They have already done videos on this as well as other professionals. As they say in the video over 100 tanks cycled with bacteria in a bottle and never any fish lost.


I've seen the video many times and that does not approach what i am suggesting. They have a testing setup where they can use every available bac starter in identical tanks with seneye attached to run a fish in cycle using each bottled bac product and provide full seneye tracked results on to compare which handles the fish in bio load best and safest.

This is entirely different than what you link to which is a very general suggestion to do a fish in cycle.
 

NashobaTek

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could it be that something was wrong with the bacteria bottle? Wend done right there is no spike in amônia, unless you where dosing amônia separately.

I was dosing ammonia at the start, then added the bottled bacteria a few days in. And waited for the bacteria to kick in.
 

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it would indeed garner more buy-ins to lead with the proof ran by me agreed

but anyone who has cycled a tank with me already knows what the proof is, happy fish n corals :)

I want skeptics to do all the testing and report back.
someone who is already a skeptic is not going to take chances without proof of any thing, although this could be a pretty simple test for you to perform. take a tank add s.w. + dry live rock add bottled bacteria add ammonia. ammonia and nitrate disappear = cycled. adding bottled bacteria isn't exactly using a fish to start the cycle. the way the thread is asked
prove that fish-in cycles harm fish. almost invites the noob to start a fresh tank with fish before they know about the bottled bacteria. i know not only from your post that free ammonia is what kills fish, free ammonia is affected by ph and tank temperature. there are just too many variables for the hobbyist to do a peer reviewed experiment.
 

shoelaceike

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On Friday I put a hippo tang, foxface, algae blenny, bangaii cardinal, convict tang, 2 clownfish and a pyrimid butterfly in a 20 gallon brand new tank (qt). I put some brand new biomedia in the filter and added the small bottle of biospira. I've fed them everyday since and have an ammonia alert badge. Its still at showing 0 ammonia.
 
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brandon429

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that the badge supported us was lucky :) and if it didn't we'd know all your stuff wasnt burned because all the fish acted normal, day by day and still is 6+ mos in

Current tally for proofing regarding fish-in cycles harming fish: an entire industry claiming it doesnt, ten thousand fish in cycles showing fish unharmed, and several angry reef aquarists online certain it harms fish by free ammonia burning.

is that an acceptable ratio summary so far, that nobody has anything but API or Red sea to offer as proof of burning?

we might could settle for a salifert test if anyone has one (using liquid ammonia and bottle bac to check for sustained levels .02 or higher, which online literature shows to be a consistent ld50 level for aquacultured marine fish, not .2, .02 ppm sustained nh3 is a decent starting point for mortality link hunters will quickly see)

when we see a few happy clownfish, they're swimming in waters under .02 ppm free nh3 and we dont have a way to reliably measure that scale in reef aquarium ammonia measurement using cheap test kits

In order to test correctly I'd have to buy a $300 ammonia tester
 
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Arabyps

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I've seen the video many times and that does not approach what i am suggesting. They have a testing setup where they can use every available bac starter in identical tanks with seneye attached to run a fish in cycle using each bottled bac product and provide full seneye tracked results on to compare which handles the fish in bio load best and safest.

This is entirely different than what you link to which is a very general suggestion to do a fish in cycle.
It's not a general suggestion. They have done it with over 100 tanks (as have others like Reefbuilders, Mad Hatter, etc.). It is proven, empirical evidence. What you suggest may be interesting but in my mind not necessary. I believe the case has been made and proven. Others think differently, which is OK too. There are many professional reefers who swear by the shrimp in the tank with ammonia, etc. as they only way. No right or wrong way - its the results that count and what you are willing to do. Best to you.
 

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This has been a way of cycling tanks for years, and backed up by many bottled bacteria manufacturers. What exactly are we discussing here? :)
Took the words out of my mouth.

what’s the point in this thread? People have been cycling with bottled bacteria for years and although the odd negative one will pop up here and there the majority are successful. We have no way of knowing if it’s completely safe for the fish, but we can get the same outcome with bottled bacteria or fish less.

To me, this hobby is a game of patience and I will always choose the fish less cycle.

I just don’t understand the point in this thread, bottled bacteria has been used for years, it works and the proof is in thousands, if not more tanks that were started like this. Why does anything need proving? It’s been done thousands of times already
 

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We could ask aquaman to translate it for us, not sure if he’s on R2R yet ;)
 
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brandon429

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So what can potential fish- in cyclers due to avoid risking fish with the dreaded: dead bottle of bottle bac? If they input fish with dead bac, and no testing, the fish will die.

input your water and rocks sand and bottle bac, use liquid ammonium chloride to see if oxidation is present/ live bottle bac. Then it’s safe like the directions say.


your sample does not have to boost to 2 ppm, it needs to be one ammonia test ran on the clean water so you get a baseline zero for the particular non digital kit being used, keep that first picture handy.

second step is add tiny amounts of liquid AC until the tester shows one degree up from calibrated zero, a tiny increment up on the second test picture showing slight ammonia +, take second picture of the boosted ammonia test.

in 24 hours take a third picture of the aquarium water sample read after it sits overnite with bottle bac in place, if it’s like pic #1 your bac are alive, go. Choose your disease protocol wisely: ‘go’ is different for many people we can see. Go simply means your tank will handle the bioload you choose to start with, like reef conventions where 500 reefs all cycle by a Friday without variation for twenty years and thousands of reefs, like ten thousand fish-in cycles we can see are running just fine. To use non digital ammonia tests better, don’t look or wait for hard zero, look for calibrated movement down.

if anyone is thinking dead bottle bac are common, post a link of a fish-in cycle that didn’t work.

if we put clownfish into a new ten gallon tank with water, dry sand dry rocks no bottle bac, does anyone here think they’ll live past three days?

ergo
fish in cycle + 3 days duration acting normal, fish were never burnt and bottle bac confirmed alive. In hindsight we can see fish in cycling hasn’t been harming fish, they’re safer though using the pre testing (But aren’t gonna do it :) )

Dr Reefs bottle 90 page bac work thread shows most all brands of bottle bac adhere to surfaces within a few days max, and a full water change still passed oxidation testing revealing true surface inoculation in place, this is the updated definition of a completed cycle. its never about nitrite in updated cycle science, we only care about free ammonia. Whatever nitrite reads at any stage of reefing: doesn’t matter. We’ve just about distilled why forum cycles stall, always, but MACNA convention reefs never do.
 
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