Ready to start my cycle?

[fernalfer]

Ok i'm ready to start my cycle but not sure which way i shall do it. I Have completely dry Marco Rock, no live rock. I put in Caribsea live sand. I have 120 gallon tank.


1. Shrimp method: Which i heard can cloud the water, smell, and could cause algae blooms.


2.Or go with a Nitrifying Bacteria in a bottle product like, Bio Spira, Dr Tims, MicroBacter7
and adding ammonia to feed it.


Which method should i go with? #2 sounds like the easier of the 2 but would like some pros and cons of either or.

 

[Moray26]

Myself personally I went with the shrimp method and it worked well. Didn't really smell because I never let it get to that point. However I'm sure you could go the other route. In my situation I had all live rock so my cycle was completed in a week with not spikes.

Good luck!

 

[thegrun]

I was sold on the shrimp method, then later started dosing pure ammonia and cycled many tanks with pure ammonia (less smell than with the shrimp), but I needed to cycle some rock quickly and used Dr. Tim's one and only; worked like a charm with a three day cycle. If it's your first tank I would go with the shrimp or pure ammonia simply because I think it's a good learning tool testing and watching the cycle progress, but if you are in a hurry I really don't see a problem with the bacteria in a bottle.

 

[cloak]

Like mentioned above, it's going to happen, one way or the other. (nature) It's up to U to figure it out...