[Nate_Bro]

I don't use live fish when cycling FW tanks ether, nitrite in FW tanks seems to be more deadly then in SW tanks, so cycling a FW tank with live fish is more "deadly", but a lot of FW fish have a wider span of parameters they can deal with then SW reef fish that have developed a very limited parameter range.

I have been keeping FW tanks and ponds for 20+ years now and I can't see much, if any difference with cycleing a FW tank or a SW tank, what differs too me is the way FW and SW tanks mature, and yes FW tanks also have a mature rate.

I have amphipods, copepods, worms, and such liveing in my FW tanks. I like to gather critters from local bodies of water and add those to my tank. I also don't use filters in my FW tanks anymore

 

[Palegic]

I kept freshwater tanks for years as a child from as early as I could remember to the age of around 20. I had no clue as to what a cycle was as I didn't have a computer to look up all this nifty information and I was too nieve to read a book. I rarely ever lost fish and never truly cycled a tank, not nearly the way I have with SW. All i ever did was set up aqua scaping, fill the tank, water treatment, startup filters and heater, then let clear up for a couple of days and stabilize temps with heater. After about 48 hours I was generally ready for fish, never really introduced more than one at a time, and never kept too many for the tank. Bi-weekly to monthly water changes with gavel vac and changed filter elements. That many years ago I also always used tap water and nothing else.

I have kept every thing from goldfish to danios, barbs to angel fish, to rare species of turtles. All without any issues. So IMHO there is a huge difference between the introductory phases of FW and SW aquarium keeping.

I made novice mistakes when getting into this hobby with TAP water and certain things with cycling and top offs as well as lighting and dosing that cause me to have detrimental issues. All of which were because I was used to keeping FW years ago and never had any problems.

 

[Nate_Bro]

When I started out keeping FW tanks all I had were under gravel filters or just an air stone.

when I started a new tank I would get tap water in 5g buckets and leave them outside for 3-4 weeks until they "aged" before I added water to the tanks, I also did the same for water changes. this was long before I ever had a computer or knew that water conditioners existed. I did have a book from the 60's that my grandpa gave me on aquariums and thats what I went by.

I bred all kinds of fish and even started breeding goldfish and Koi.

I think when it comes to SW and FW we don't give it a straight line...

SW reef fish and a lot more delicate then other SW fish IMO so if we setup tanks with hardier SW fish I think the results with SW and FW would be about the same, right?

 

[Invic]

My favorite method for cycling a FW tank is get someone else's or one of your other tanks really nasty built up filter cartridges and put it in the new tanks filter for a month

Toss in a bit of food on occasion and watch the levels on the tank.

Nasty dirty filter cartridges are chalk full of fun loving bacteria for Freshwater. Not quite as easy on SW side. Problem is SW livestock is used to Very Very Low levels, where FW natural environment they are subject to higher levels compared to SW.

Same way if someone from Alaska comes down to Indiana in the winter time, they think its nice and not bad at all, while everyone around here is freezing their $*#$# off
Same way after working outdoors all winter I get used to the cold more so then most folks that work indoors. Still freaking cold don't get me wrong lol