Cycle.. cycle.. cycle ?? (Is it biggest lie?)

[AamirAlfaiz]

Is the cycling tank biggest lie of this industry?
I using 20 gallons tank past 2 years (uncycled). No issue at all.
If anyone else who had never cycle the tank and success?

 

[DoubleDutch]

What do you mean by lie of the industry ?

 

[Azedenkae]

Congrats, your tank cycled itself lol.

Plenty of people set up a tank, get lucky, never see any issues. Could be low stocking, could be any other reason. Most others see fish die very quickly though (source: soooooo many posts on this and other forums).

If one cycles a tank beforehand though, live stock do not die because of ammonia, nitrite, etc. So no, cycling is not a lie.

But feel free to ignore all that and believe it is an industry lie.

 

[FoldedCheese]

Eventually a tank will cycle itself given enough time. It's not a lie, it's basic biology. How do you know your tanks are uncycled? Have you tested the water parameters?

 

[StarGirl]

Your tank is cycled if it's been going for 2 years.

 

[ProudPapa]

Is the cycling tank biggest lie of this industry?
I using 20 gallons tank past 2 years (uncycled). No issue at all.
If anyone else who had never cycle the tank and success?

Just because you didn't consciously take steps to cycle your tank doesn't mean it didn't happen anyway.

 

[mattgirl]

Is the cycling tank biggest lie of this industry?
I using 20 gallons tank past 2 years (uncycled). No issue at all.
If anyone else who had never cycle the tank and success?

You may not have been aware of it but if you had fish in this tank it will be cycled. Cycling a tank simply means we are growing bacteria that removes the ammonia and nitrites. If you have fish in this tank they were producing the ammonia needed to cycle a tank.

 

[Fish99]

Is the cycling tank biggest lie of this industry?
I using 20 gallons tank past 2 years (uncycled). No issue at all.
If anyone else who had never cycle the tank and success?

Cycling is not a big lie. There are tons of products that are sold to "help cycle" or "cycle for you" that are a big lie.
You just got lucky you didn't kill anything.

 

[HupGupp]

Welcome to the accidental cycling club! There's a lot of us!

 

[BassaraAhara]

Is the cycling tank biggest lie of this industry?
I using 20 gallons tank past 2 years (uncycled). No issue at all.
If anyone else who had never cycle the tank and success?

If you've been using a 20 gallon tank the past 2 years, your tank has cycled on it's own. Putting fish in the tank and adding fish food ensues ammonia, which kick starts the cycle process.

Everyone who agrees to this website has to know what the nitrogen cycle is.

 

[ForBettaorForWorse]

I didn't cycle my tank when I started (never heard about it, had no clue) And it ended up working out great. That being said, this not intentionally cycling is risky. If you have fish worth money, then i'd recommend cycling properly so you don't lose any of your investment.

 

[Azedenkae]

Welcome to the accidental cycling club! There's a lot of us!

We all were probably part of this club at some point lol.

Is the cycling tank biggest lie of this industry?
I using 20 gallons tank past 2 years (uncycled). No issue at all.
If anyone else who had never cycle the tank and success?

All joking, jesting, and sarcastic remarks aside, I do apologize for being so harsh but cycling is seriously something that has gone through a lot of time to be well established in the hobby as being beneficial, and yes occurring regardless of whether one intends to do it or not. It's something that aquarists themselves basically figured out, and really only more recently had 'industry' started to hop on the train and make products catering to it.

If anything, 'industry' prefer to NOT have this be the truth. Aquarium stores want to sell fish, and sell asap. Companies do make money off of bottled bac and ammonia products, so there is that, but honestly it is not that huge a portion of their income. A 250ml bottle of Seachem Stability for example, is less than $10 on Amazon. Money is money, yes, but they make far, far, FAR more from Seachem Prime for example. Imagine how much more money they would make if cycling was not a thing. They'd be able to sell a lot more Prime or other products to make water safe. Like, A LOT more.

 

[KrissyBunnie]

We all were probably part of this club at some point lol.

All joking, jesting, and sarcastic remarks aside, I do apologize for being so harsh but cycling is seriously something that has gone through a lot of time to be well established in the hobby as being beneficial, and yes occurring regardless of whether one intends to do it or not. It's something that aquarists themselves basically figured out, and really only more recently had 'industry' started to hop on the train and make products catering to it.

If anything, 'industry' prefer to NOT have this be the truth. Aquarium stores want to sell fish, and sell asap. Companies do make money off of bottled bac and ammonia products, so there is that, but honestly it is not that huge a portion of their income. A 250ml bottle of Seachem Stability for example, is less than $10 on Amazon. Money is money, yes, but they make far, far, FAR more from Seachem Prime for example. Imagine how much more money they would make if cycling was not a thing. They'd be able to sell a lot more Prime or other products to make water safe. Like, A LOT more.

In the world of plausible conspiracies, I don't find tricking people into cycling to be one of them. As everybody else said, there's scientific evidence and biological factors proving that it exists. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away lol.
I'm all for having conversations about "what if" but they have to be at least somewhat based in fact. I don't see any way of profiting off of a nitrogen cycle. If anything it delays people from buying stuff for their tanks.

 

[Arvil]

I started about 30 years ago, cycling wasn’t a thing then. Used carbon and ‘ammonia’ cartridges for many years. Seems it just cycled itself as I did the recommended few fish at a time thing.

 

[Fish99]

If anything, 'industry' prefer to NOT have this be the truth. Aquarium stores want to sell fish, and sell asap. Companies do make money off of bottled bac and ammonia products, so there is that, but honestly it is not that huge a portion of their income. A 250ml bottle of Seachem Stability for example, is less than $10 on Amazon. Money is money, yes, but they make far, far, FAR more from Seachem Prime for example. Imagine how much more money they would make if cycling was not a thing. They'd be able to sell a lot more Prime or other products to make water safe. Like, A LOT more.

Are you kidding? This stuff for cycling is a multibillion dollar business and a large majority of these products don't do anything benifitial.
As for making water safe, oh gosh there are tons of that high profit too. Not just de-chlore you know?

 

[DoubleDutch]

Are you kidding? This stuff for cycling is a multibillion dollar business and a large majority of these products don't do anything benifitial.
As for making water safe, oh gosh there are tons of that high profit too. Not just de-chlore you know?

But it wasn't the industry that fooled us or made everyone do what isn't necessary. Only after the discovery what the sollution was the industry jumped in and the marketingdepartment made an unbelievable use of the incredible impatience humans have (I want it and want it now).

With that in mind these products do something "beneficial". The most buy time for the natural bacteria to cycle the tank so we don't have to wait to put fish in immediately.

So let's be fair. We ourselves / our behaviour and expectations caused a complete industry to make this happen.

In earlier days there was succes (the tank cycled itself) or failure (fish died when levels were to high).

I've often called bacterial "starters" Liquid (im)patience

 

[Azedenkae]

Are you kidding? This stuff for cycling is a multibillion dollar business and a large majority of these products don't do anything benifitial.

Well...

As for making water safe, oh gosh there are tons of that high profit too. Not just de-chlore you know?

Exactly. EXACTLY. Exactly this.

Cycling products IS profitable and IS money, but there is so much more in products that 'makes water safe', including things like... aloe extracts. Highly profitable.

If not for the fact that cycling is a true thing and that companies HAD to jump on the bandwagon, they'd be much happier just selling products that makes water safe (or at least allegedly does so). Why sell one product to cycle a tank and that's done, don't really have to worry about ammonia again, versus a bunch of ammonia tracking and (allegedly) detoxifying products that a hobbyist have to constantly buy. Y'know. Stuff like that.

 

[Fish99]

Well...

Exactly. EXACTLY. Exactly this.

Cycling products IS profitable and IS money, but there is so much more in products that 'makes water safe', including things like... aloe extracts. Highly profitable.

If not for the fact that cycling is a true thing and that companies HAD to jump on the bandwagon, they'd be much happier just selling products that makes water safe (or at least allegedly does so). Why sell one product to cycle a tank and that's done, don't really have to worry about ammonia again, versus a bunch of ammonia tracking and (allegedly) detoxifying products that a hobbyist have to constantly buy. Y'know. Stuff like that.

Ya I get that. I'm saying I don't think the fact that tanks cycle slow down the sale of anything, so to speak. Look at all the markeded FOR the cycle. They just make what they want and put it out there. There is zero regulation on this stuff, including testing to know what it does or does NOT do. I won't name names because people are, well, SOLD on it. lol And when you have a belief it's impossible to kill, human nature. These companies know this and run with it. All profit all the time baby!

 

[MacZ]

I don't see any way of profiting off of a nitrogen cycle. If anything it delays people from buying stuff for their tanks.

The point is, it makes people buy ONE product more. And as many people don't read instructions they add the whole bottle. And another one every month as they luckily read the one sentence that says "Add it with every waterchange".

That's 5-10 bucks per month. Let's say 1 in 10 hobbyists keeps doing that for 6 months after setup. That is a margin.

I see it similarly to DoubleDutch, it's patience in a bottle. People have the feeling they're proactively doing something.

What I see much more problematic are the actual myths the industry keeps in circulation: "You don't need an ammonia source" (convenient, as they don't sell that. But the store sells living ammonia sources...) and "The cycle ends if pH drops below 6.5" (convenient that this is the pH at which the bacteria they sell won't work anymore).

That makes for other products, conviently also targeted to keep the hardness and pH up so the pH doesn't "crash". So it's here a bit, there a bit... Adding up.

 

[DoubleDutch]

We can blame everybody but we ourselves are the ones that buy the stuff though there isn't really any need to.

Think it is time we should take liability for the things we do ourselves. Same as buying a fish, not knowing what it is and then blame the employee. Yeah right.

 

[Azedenkae]

Ya I get that. I'm saying I don't think the fact that tanks cycle slow down the sale of anything, so to speak. Look at all the markeded FOR the cycle. They just make what they want and put it out there. There is zero regulation on this stuff, including testing to know what it does or does NOT do. I won't name names because people are, well, SOLD on it. lol And when you have a belief it's impossible to kill, human nature. These companies know this and run with it. All profit all the time baby!

I think it is here that we simply disagree. To me, I can see clearly how there would be market cannibalization, when sales of cycling products replace potentially a whole set of other products.

I mean for example, I bought FritzZyme TurboStart 900 for my marine tank and cycled it in four days. That costed me $16. Good money, sure. Without cycling (or rather, with fish-in cycling) I'd buy Fritz Complete, Fritz RPM salt, and so on for pretty frequent water changes. This is a bad example because once you throw in marine salt in there it can get pretty expensive pretty fast with frequent/big water changes, but anyways it is a personal example so I do want to speak from there.

 

[KrissyBunnie]

The point is, it makes people buy ONE product more. And as many people don't read instructions they add the whole bottle. And another one every month as they luckily read the one sentence that says "Add it with every waterchange".

That's 5-10 bucks per month. Let's say 1 in 10 hobbyists keeps doing that for 6 months after setup. That is a margin.

I see it similarly to DoubleDutch, it's patience in a bottle. People have the feeling they're proactively doing something.

What I see much more problematic are the actual myths the industry keeps in circulation: "You don't need an ammonia source" (convenient, as they don't sell that. But the store sells living ammonia sources...) and "The cycle ends if pH drops below 6.5" (convenient that this is the pH at which the bacteria they sell won't work anymore).

That makes for other products, conviently also targeted to keep the hardness and pH up so the pH doesn't "crash". So it's here a bit, there a bit... Adding up.

I guess that's the same mentality of "rinse and repeat"... The idea that 1 in 10 people probably will and they'll make more money off of that person. I suppose that could be true.