What if I set it up......then buy a little bag of live sand.
Then I can get all the cycle starters, and maybe two damsels?

Yea, everyone has a hard time resisting the first couple fish for a tank. It always seems like you want to liven it up, but in reality you are just making the water quality worse and threatening the life of the beautiful damsels. So I would fishless cycle it. It make take longer, but it will become more stable once you do add fish. It gives the micro organisms time to build up instead of making them reproduce faster to handle the waste of fish cycling.

sounds perfect except for the two fish ..........do what you said and in 6-8 weeks you could try a fish or two if your parameters are stablizing...............of course you can do what you want, but take it from someone who cycled wth fish and killed about 8 dams in a 20 gallon tank over a 6-8 week period of time, it's just not worth it...................

lol... i always cycle with damsels...




i know i know... i always cycle with fish... i've never had any casualties... i've even cycled with cichlids...