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[TheReefGeek]

(I'm a big believer in just letting a tank cycle without panicking every time I see a spike)

Seeing the spikes is not a panick, its great, because you know you are building up the quanitties of bacteria you need to break down waste. Without "seeing" the cycle, you don't know your tank can break down wastes effectively.

Also, why did you do water changes during the cycle? You were removing waste that should have gone towards building up bacteria levels.

If you have very little die off, and did water changes, and didn't record any spikes, I wouldn't be confident that your system actually cycled properly.