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Originally Posted by Seriak
I think there would still be die off when you add live sand to a new system. That is why people say you can just add live sand to a new system to get the cycling started because there would be enough die off from the critters in the sand to start the bacteria process.
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The live sand would also come with nitrfying bacteria, so there may not be as big a spike as one might expect. Or there could be a larger spike too, depending on the system. If there was cured live rock in the tank, or an established sump or refugium, or even some macro-algae which lives off ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and phosphate - another byproduct of die-off - the spike would probably be smaller and may not be noticed at all.
BTW, we started the 42 with about 3" of sugar-sized Aragamax, which isn't live. Then we added salted, 78 F. RO water. Our RO unit doesn't remove all the ammonia from the tapwater here (which uses chloramine - a mixture of chlorine and 1 ppm+ ammonia that is more stable than chlorine alone). So when I added the RO to the sandbed, then tested it after the tank was almost full, there was no ammonia or nitrite in it. The sand had become live enough with bacteria in 3 days to deal with the ammonia and nitrite in the RO water. (Didn't test for nitrate, though.)
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Originally Posted by Seriak
Also, everytime you add a fish, you now no longer have enough bacteria to cope with the extra fish so a spike will occur again. By adding a lot of fish at the same time your spike will be more pronounced. The higher the spike, the greater the chance for stress and dead fish.
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I'd have to say it would depend on the individual reef system, but in theory, I agree with you.