cycling tank
- Thread starter gharner
- Start date
geridoc
Well-Known Member
It is possible, but the resulting bioload will have to be pretty small, since there is only a limited bacterial population on the surface of the sand, and poor movement of water through the sand bed. Years ago, when undergravel filters were the technology of choice the sandbed was the only effective filter, and it was ok, but the undergravel filter pulled water though the bed.
jacksonpt
Active Member
Originally Posted by gharner
is it possible to cycle a tank with just using live sand?
yes and no. LS will not trigger a cycle, so you'll need something in the tank to decompose. You can add fish and let their waste do it, but that's generally frowned upon as it's hard on the fish, often times resulting in their death. Insead, you can use a peice of raw shimp (from the supermarket), or a healthy pinch of fish food.
But LS is enough to get through an initial cycle. As was said earlier though, the result will be a tank with a rather small bioload capacity.
is it possible to cycle a tank with just using live sand?
yes and no. LS will not trigger a cycle, so you'll need something in the tank to decompose. You can add fish and let their waste do it, but that's generally frowned upon as it's hard on the fish, often times resulting in their death. Insead, you can use a peice of raw shimp (from the supermarket), or a healthy pinch of fish food.
But LS is enough to get through an initial cycle. As was said earlier though, the result will be a tank with a rather small bioload capacity.
bruder
Member
I went the Damsel route as I had read in many pieces of literature and been advised by my LFS. If I could do it again, I would not. There are many other ways including only using LR and LS, or even using a frozen shrimp to start the cycle. You can also just "ghost or phantom" feed every other day or so. While there is the strong urge to put something in the tank for those first months, try and not do it. While there is a good chance that your damsel will survive, what are you going to do with the guy afterward. Unless you plan on incorporating it into your system, which if you have a nano is already very strictly limited, you will be forced to re-locate your damsel.
And if you do go the damsel route, I would not toss in "a bunch of the cheap damsels" but rather one fish.
Hope that helped,
Ryan
And if you do go the damsel route, I would not toss in "a bunch of the cheap damsels" but rather one fish.
Hope that helped,
Ryan
geridoc
Well-Known Member
I can never understand why anyone who wants to keep saltwater fish in an aquarium would start by killing or torturing saltwater fish in order to cycle the tank. For 31 years I have used Moe's method of adding ammonium chloride to tanks to cycle them, and have never seen a spike in nitrogenous waste after the initial cycle.
