Should I Cycle if I have Premixed Saltwater, Live Rock, and Sand?

[brandon429]

from the answers, we can directly infer Chat GPT assumes the role of the buyer at the reef convention, not the seller

see that hesitancy, that scared/must test/might not be cycled fear even though thousands of pages of skip cycle live rock information exists on the web?

that's trained buyers mode right there.

Leave the resolved, commanding cycles up to the sellers. yield, people. pay up

 

[anthonygf]

all we have to do to name your cycle close date is define live rock

was it wet, from a pet store holding tank, that looked like this:

that is a vat of 100% skip cycle live rock from a pet store, when anyone buys that and moves it to their home, the new tank is instantly aged and cycled. with no further help

there is no mini cycle

nothing dies off in the transfer

all bacteria ride to the other home just fine, because they're tough not weak

no bottle bac is used

no ammonia testing using non digital gear is used in the assessment, we don't test these types of cycles for a reason, we trust the process. this rock transfer technique runs every reef convention ever made for forty years, where hundreds of ready reefs are all ready by the convention start date, because they skipped the common wait cycled used by dry rock setups.

eight pages of instantly skip cycled reefs:

A thread tracking pure skip cycle instant reefs, no bottle bac

THE GOLDEN EXAMPLE OF A SKIP CYCLE DAY 1 REEF https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/octo-high-end-sps-skip-cycle-build.713256/ read that entire thread before you read ours. that's the heart of skip cycling. Everything we do going forward in this thread reflects on that ability above, in the #1...

www.reef2reef.com

that's a thread dedicated to tracking tanks that are set up in one day, because the cycle was skipped.

I have never used bottled bacteria, I figured I had enough on the rocks and worked out fine. That was some nice rock I got from Petco, looked like it was aged with some coraline algae growing.

 

[brandon429]

that is indeed what sellers do. that is what anyone applying updated cycling science would do (every pet store owner on the planet)


buyers are hesitant, fearful of water bacteria in water, have no permission to proceed at all without testing and at minimum several week's wait.


sellers, on the other hand, run big skip cycle threads. and pet stores. and reef conventions, the cash flows to them not out from their pockets; this is the grand design. let's test GPT on skip cycling as a basic option:

contrast that answer with the skip cycle study link here:

Instant Tank Cycle

Set up my tank Friday. Placed a sizeable chunk of frozen brine shrimp into the filter sock to stop it messing up the tank. Saturday PM Ammonia is 0 Saturday PM added another chunk of frozen brine shrimp different area of sump. Added seeded live rock from other tanks also. Sunday PM Ammonia...

www.reef2reef.com

we now have 2 direct oppositional study threads to see a large amount of testless skip cycling happening. only sellers do this: buyers cannot. they've no permission.

*giving credit to chatGPT: it has no idea of the terminology nuances we're using in this matter. I'm amazed it could tell on question #1 that we were even talking about reef tanks. thats cool of it.

I have never cycled any pico tank I've ever uploaded to the internet, and that's a lot of pico tanks. they were all 100% live rock day 1 skip cycles, starting in 2002. so for 20 years we've been doing something still labeled as not possible, in buyer's circles.

when the OP gets back to this thread: head will spin lol

 

[Dburr1014]

that is indeed what sellers do. that is what anyone applying updated cycling science would do (every pet store owner on the planet)


buyers are hesitant, fearful of water bacteria in water, have no permission to proceed at all without testing and at minimum several week's wait.


sellers, on the other hand, run big skip cycle threads. and pet stores. and reef conventions, the cash flows to them not out from their pockets; this is the grand design. let's test GPT on skip cycling as a basic option:

contrast that answer with the skip cycle study link here:

Instant Tank Cycle

Set up my tank Friday. Placed a sizeable chunk of frozen brine shrimp into the filter sock to stop it messing up the tank. Saturday PM Ammonia is 0 Saturday PM added another chunk of frozen brine shrimp different area of sump. Added seeded live rock from other tanks also. Sunday PM Ammonia...

www.reef2reef.com

we now have 2 direct oppositional study threads to see a large amount of testless skip cycling happening. only sellers do this: buyers cannot. they've no permission.

*giving credit to chatGPT: it has no idea of the terminology nuances we're using in this matter. I'm amazed it could tell on question #1 that we were even talking about reef tanks. thats cool of it.

I have never cycled any pico tank I've ever uploaded to the internet, and that's a lot of pico tanks. they were all 100% live rock day 1 skip cycles, starting in 2002. so for 20 years we've been doing something still labeled as not possible, in buyer's circles.

when the OP gets back to this thread: head will spin lol

GPT obviously hasn't heard of brandon429.
Need to wait until it catches up.

 

[brandon429]

chat gpt is 'biomics / Eli as the pilot am thinking
he he fair use humor sarcasm.

 

[Troylee]

Hello. Seven years ago I started my reef with tank matured live rock from Petco. I bought some live rock and 2 clowns at the same time and it did not cycle. No amonia problem. Then a week later bought more rock and a new fish. Did this until I was fully stocked in my 46 gallon bowfront. After 2 years I had coral growing and all fish survived and still had them 7 years later until I sold everything just last week. You can do it. This is my 46 after 2 years 5 years ago.

dang where the tang go?!? Lol didn’t see it on the local fb pages

 

[kxnji]

if you don't have it already, some sort of mechanical filter media (filter sock, filter floss).

Tests for at least Ammonia and Nitrates. (NOT API as they tend to be faulty)

Do you have live rock, dry "live" rock, or liferock? (wet live rock with algae and such on it pulled from a farm somewhere is the real "live" rock. The other two aren't bad, they just aren't really "live")

Most people cycle nowadays without fish, using bottled bacteria. You can find some online or in stores (Dr. Tims, Microbactr, Etc

if you don't have it already, some sort of mechanical filter media (filter sock, filter floss).

Tests for at least Ammonia and Nitrates. (NOT API as they tend to be faulty)

Do you have live rock, dry "live" rock, or liferock? (wet live rock with algae and such on it pulled from a farm somewhere is the real "live" rock. The other two aren't bad, they just aren't really "live")

Most people cycle nowadays without fish, using bottled bacteria. You can find some online or in stores (Dr. Tims, Microbactr, Etc.)

if you don't have it already, some sort of mechanical filter media (filter sock, filter floss).

Tests for at least Ammonia and Nitrates. (NOT API as they tend to be faulty)

Do you have live rock, dry "live" rock, or liferock? (wet live rock with algae and such on it pulled from a farm somewhere is the real "live" rock. The other two aren't bad, they just aren't really "live")

Most people cycle nowadays without fish, using bottled bacteria. You can find some online or in stores (Dr. Tims, Microbactr, Etc.)

Im pretty sure I have dry live rock? I bought 5lbs of CaribSea Life rock

 

[Dburr1014]

Im pretty sure I have dry live rock? I bought 5lbs of CaribSea Life rock

Yes, life rock is dead rock.
You will need to run a full cycle.

 

[brandon429]

dry = not live. needs to cycle, pick anyone's bottle bac cycle, buy an API ammonia test kit, you'll get their same results all set. the post intro would ideally state: have dry rock...

chatgpt gets a total win in this case

 

[Dan_P]

I recently bought the Red Sea Nano max Perninsula along with Premixed Saltwater from my local store, live rock, live sand, and a heater. Should I be adding anything extra to the water?? Should I be letting it cycle??? Or am I good to go?? I am soooo new to this and have done a good amount of research but am confused on how I should approach this, I would really appreciate some help. Thanks!

This is an easy one to answer. If it was my tank, I would confirm it could handle ammonia by adding a little ammonium chloride and observe whether it is consumed it in a day or two.

 

[Tired]

see that hesitancy, that scared/must test/might not be cycled fear even though thousands of pages of skip cycle live rock information exists on the web?

ChatGPT Is a bad source for just about anything. Among other things, it can wind up pulling together pieces that aren't necessarily related; the information about adding ammonia may be from sources about how to cycle with dry rock, for example.
It's also fairly reasonable that a bot like this wouldn't have been taught to pull from forums. There are a lot of forums out there of people giving each other absolutely terrible advice.
Interesting to see what it says, I suppose, but all this really reflects is bias in its sources and a possible mix-up between slightly different topics.

I'm also not sure that "if you get established live rock, your tank is instantly cycled" is "new cycling science". As far as I know, that's established information.

(and if you want there to not be 6 pages worth of replies, you might consider putting all your points in one post rather than several right after each other. /lh)

This is an easy one to answer. If it was my tank, I would confirm it could handle ammonia by adding a little ammonium chloride and observe whether it is consumed it in a day or two.

Agreed. If that rock is decent live, the tank's definitely cycled, but there's no harm in confirming.

 

[SlugSnorter]

Im pretty sure I have dry live rock? I bought 5lbs of CaribSea Life rock

its dry. Cycle with some bottled bac

 

[brandon429]

@Tired

Post a cycling article that covers live transfer skip cycling, not a forum write up or post

Legit curious if new readers will encounter what you saw

Try to see if convention cycles have ever been tied into reef hobby cycling -other- than Jakes reefbuilders article on it a few years ago. He posted that long after we'd been making the comparisons on boards, as a review of what we'd been discussing. Conventions have a must-do ready date, none fail

All cycle articles I've ever read for thirty years involve verifying something that might not be ready on the date of assessment, careful testing and hoping...I've never seen resolved skip cycling written about other than in Jakes blog post.

Since this is a dry rock/non live cycle the traditional cycling rules hold. bottle bac, api, ammonia and a good hefty wait. plus extra round of bac once the initial is deemed dead.

 

[brandon429]

just legit searched for any article on skip cycling, any magazine post ever digitized and searchable, I can't find it. 100% of all cycle training revolves around dry rock cycling technique. pretty much the only variance to that, a source not telling a cycler they must add ammonia, is TBS/live rock sellers from maricultured places

those are the only non-forum post cycle resources I can find. there are no printed materials I know that convey the confidence of a seller's skip cycle convention setup, worthy of keeping $150K in frags, torches and bounces on day one as many days as we want to run the setup to a buyer/someone researching reef tank cycles.

I find a strong sales gradient is in place regarding bulk cycling information: buy bottle bac, have an ammonia test kit, if ammonia doesn't go to zero/cycle is stuck/repeat.

I cannot locate testless, known start date completion live rock skip cycle transfer information/what convention sellers do

 

[Tired]

What I mean is, if I'm a new account on an aquarium forum, and I say "hello, I got some live rock from my LFS, here's a picture of that rock covered in coraline algae and happy feather dusters and things, can I add fish to this tank?", I don't know that anyone is going to say I can't. It seems to be common knowledge that established live rock = established tank, and I don't know that that's new information.

I also wonder if- are you specifically using the term "skip cycling" in searches? It might be there are articles out there that don't use that term and wouldn't be coming up.

 

[anthonygf]

dang where the tang go?!? Lol didn’t see it on the local fb pages

Sorry Troylee. I did post it close to a year ago and went back to those that responded and started with them. I wanted someone to take the whole contents of my 75, not just the Tang. Found someone with a large tank and he bought all fish, rocks and cleaning crew. Plus he bought 2 pails of salt and my skimmer. I now have my 75 set up for African Cichlids, less demanding fish.