People use to put nothing but a Molly (freshwater) or a Mono (fresh water) in their marine tank to cycle them. The bacteria is even in the air, however it takes a long time to cycle a tank when both the nitrogen and the bacteria come from the air. Cycling has brought a lot of its own Myths into being. It is really simple. There are hundreds of thousands of sewer plants and aquariums running on biological filtration. There is a bacteria that needs very little organic material for its growth, but it needs proportionally much more oxygen for any increase in organic matter to maintain an optimal growth curve. Hence to much organics or ammonia then the exponential multiplication (growth) of bacteria stops, and possibly even declines. Therefore, this means if you throw to much ammonia or dead shrimp in the tank that after it decomposes a awys you are actually stopping the multiplication of bacteria due to a shortage of dissolved oxygen. Which means you are not building a system which is less inclined to later undergo a mini cycle. Just the opposite. You should put in enough organic matter to start your cycle than slowly add more, and more in increasing amounts until the system can handle the increasing input without spiking the ammonia or nitrites, but instead just cause an increase in nitrates. That will produce the heaviest number of nitrifying bacteria in your system. Not adding a huge amount in the beginning and letting the bacteria flounder along with little oxygen. Wastes have what is called an bacterial oxygen demand (BOD) and that is a measurement of how much oxygen it takes to break down the matter biologically. It is tested constantly in the sewage treatment facilities all around the world. They are given the option of diluting their input of organics with more water, which they frequently do. We as aquarists have a set amount of water, so we need work with less nutrient input or increase dissolved oxygen levels to accommodate increased organic waste input. However very few people have refugiums with macro algae going during tank cycling. Basically even a small live rock will furnish all the nutrients and the bacteria need to produce a tank cycle. To assure it will produce all the nutrients just leave the live rock out of water for a few hours before putting it in the new tank.
Most Windex also has antifreeze in it.
Have you ever noticed the increasing number of newbies on this site who complain that their cycle appears to be stuck. That is because of what I just explained above. They need to correct the problem through decreasing the levels of nutrients, IE water changes. There is not enough dissolved oxygen for much bacterial (growth) action, yet alone bacterial multiplication with a BOD that out weighs the dissolved oxygen levels present.
Poor advice leads to poor cycling and hence the "stuck" pnenomonan.
