Cycle time for fish only. No live rock or sand.

[paddyob]

Originally Posted by Myka

If there is no rock or sand you will have to dose an ammonia detoxifier daily in order to process the ammonia that the fish produce. A setup of that fashion is essentially a quarantine setup as it will not support enough nitrifying bacteria to support the fish waste which means is will never "cycle". This makes your question a moot point. If you add a layer of sand to the tank then you can slowly back off the ammonia detoxifier with the system supporting itself around the 2 week mark, so in that case you could say the cycle would take about 2 weeks. I've setup many fish in this fashion, using an ammonia detoxifier with a SeaChem Ammonia Alert badge is quite reliable and easy as long as you forget the dosing instructions, and stay on top of the ammonia. How long do you plan to hold the Clown pairs in this fashion?

This is for my breeding system. I dropped a couple pounds of cured rock in each chamber as well as 5g water from the rock tank.