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[TheReefGeek]

It is a bit misleading.

Your bacteria levels in the rock will balance out with the amount of waste being produced. More waste, more bacteria.

Imagine if you get very little die off, and do water changes, then you don't get much waste, so you don't get as much bacteria. Then you put fish in, and start feeding them, creating higher levels of waste than your existing bacteria can break down. The bacteria will rapidly re-produce to this new, higher level of waste, but in the meantime you have ammonia present in your system, followed by nitrite.

So the trick is really to not increase the waste level quicker than the bacteria can multiply to keep up. I like to cycle my tanks "hard" with lots of waste, probably to the point where bacteria dies off when I put livestock in it.

You really don't know if your tank is cycled or not right now, so you need to create some waste in there without sacrificing more fish, so feed your tank, measure the levels, and see what happens, otherwise you are just risking killing more livestock.

Or try a hardier fish like a damsel, but they are a PITA down the road.