jeffaquarius
Aquarium Advice Addict
When you introduce BB via "live" rock, filter media, etc. you are not "cycling" the tank but rather "seeding" it with BB and hoping for a good colonization. The system does not go through a cycling phase, but rather a lag phase in which the seeded BB can colonize the "clean" material to a point of being able to handle the bio-load.
If I have a new tank and I use 50/50 of LR and base rocks am I not cycling the tank before it is safe for my livestock? In my understanding Nitrogen Cycle is a continuous process of converting Nutrients to Nitrites into Nitrates and Nitrogen consumed by algae which is back to food and so on. You can not have a tank to cycle (safely) if you do not have enough BB to consume the bioload. I would like to emphasize that cycling does not happen only once or only when setting up a new tank. Stable tanks continuously perform this cycling process. We just use the term CYCLING in new tanks when we are trying to produce more bb to maximize the conversion process.