I will preface this post by saying - YMMV, and I would never suggest this approach to a newcomer or someone who doesn't know what they're doing and/or isn't willing to make necessary adjustments if things take a turn for the worst.
I set up my first "reef" tank before many of the current practices were well established in the hobby - I didn't know what live rock was. VHO T12 was still pretty new. MH wasn't on the radar. People used UGFs and big wet/dry filters. I'd seen an obscure reference to a protein skimmer in a magazine, and my LFS literally laughed when I asked if they could order me one.
At any rate, that first tank of mine started 100% sterile. It was dry crushed coral, dry clean rock, fresh synthetic seawater, and equipment. There was no biological component whatsoever. So, of course, had I dropped lots of fish in, they would have died as the nitrogen cycle occurred. I cycled according to conventional practice at that point in time - drop in a single hardy fish, and monitor the nitrogen cycle until it leveled out.
My next tank was a bit of an accidental hybrid of the old-fashioned sterile approach and the modern liverock approach. It was started with "seeded" crushed coral and rock from that first tank. I tried to "cycle" it in the conventional sense at that point in time (let it sit empty with a pinch of flake food to provide nutrients - we knew not to put fish in to kick off the cycle by now) but
nothing happened. I added the first livestock s-l-o-w-l-y (a fish every month), and again - nothing.
My next tank after that was what you might consider standard by today's practices - it was started full of fresh-from-the-ocean live rock. It experienced a huge surge in the various elements of the nitrogen cycle as it sat empty, before I added fish. I had the typical nutrient-related issues during that tank's first year - various pest algae, dinos, etc. - I'd never had these issues with prior tanks.
After that "conventionally modern" tank, I've never done another traditional new tank by today's standards. All of my tanks have been started with mostly dry clean dead rock (man made for the most part), and a small amount of well-seasoned live rock from an established system. I've started at least 4 or 5 systems in this manner. Some sat empty for a month or two because I was nervous about the nitrogen cycle, but some were
fully stocked within hours of being set up. All of them were successful, and I had no nutrient problems, ammonia/nitrite spikes, or any other "new tank" issues. Some of these tanks were "live transfers" - that is, I HAD to put lots of livestock in a new tank, because I was taking an old tank offline simultaneously.
One of those tanks was started with nothing but a well-stocked macroalgae refugium for nutrient export (a skimmer was added later because I was embarrassed to have a skimmerless tank :lol: ). That tank did the best. It strikes me that for skimmers to remove waste from an aquarium, that waste has to be in a certain format. Whereas natural uptake via macroalgae (or, hopefully, TS) is a little more broad-spectrum, since pretty much all waste will eventually decay to the point that algae will use it. Meanwhile, if something in your system decays past the "large polarized molecule" state that a protein skimmer can grab, you're outta luck if a protein skimmer is your only export. So, I'm a firm believer in starting a tank off with "natural" waste management instead of protein skimming, even if a skimmer will be used longterm.
So, cliff notes - I have experience with several tanks in the past that were started with a hybrid approach. Use mostly clean sterile live rock, plus select well-cured live rock, stock reasonably (i.e. no mandarins! No delicate fish! Don't overdo it!), ensure you have nutrient export in place to deal with the mild spikes you'd get otherwise, and things are fine.
So, Alex, I pretty much agree with what you found - if you start a tank with tons of fresh or barely cured live rock, OF COURSE you're going to get all sorts of nutrient spikes. It has nothing to do with your tank's readiness for livestock, and everything to do with all the crud on the liverock dying off. IMHO this is one of the silliest things we currently do in this hobby- jam a pound per gallon of dirty rock into a brand new tank. Regardless of my own influence, success, or failure, I hope this practice ends in the next decade. Or, at least before it becomes illegal to harvest natural live rock. It's a great resource for sure, but not always used appropriately IMO.
On the opposite end, if you start a tank with a completely sterile environment (my first tank), you'll get a huge cycle when you introduce livestock, because there's zero processing capability in your system. This is absolutely a silly approach as well.
So, I try to hit dead center. Start off with a moderate biological processing capacity, thanks to select seasoned live rock or substrate, and an otherwise sterile system. This way, you don't have a cycle from excessive liverock die-off, and you don't have a cycle from a complete lack of nutrient processing capability.
This post ended up being a ramble, I hope it makes sense.
I'm sure that tomorrow when my order arrives and I dump fish in this monster, some people will think I'm crazy for putting livestock in a "new" tank, regardless of my explanation.
Speaking of the crud from LR, I just bought a piece of LR from my LFS for the 5.5 gallon my son is putting together. Thankfully he is listenning to me as far as putting the tank together. He was ready to put that rock into the tank, and I told him it would be better to leave it in a 5g bucket with a powerhead for a couple of weeks. The amount of crud coming off that rock is amazing. All that crud is easier to clean out of a bucket than the tank.
