That was the manner in which a tank use to be recommended to be cycled. But, that doesn't have to be the case anymore, there are far better techinques to get a system ready for taking livestock.

During the cycling process ammonia and nitrite levels can be come elevated. Both of these chemicals are toxic, and therefore place any fish present in the system at the time under stress. Additionally, many damsels are very aggressive fish, so they are not suitable inhabitants for the average reef aquarium. And if you want to remove them after the cycling has completed, they can be very difficult to capture.

The reason that a fish is used to cycle a reef tank is that the fish is simply used as a souce of ammonia. Nothing more than that. The good thing is, that you can introduce ammonia into the system using several other techniques without having to use a fish.

The more typical method used is to simply add liverock to the tank. On and within the liverock some of the life dies, producing ammonia, initiating the cycling process. This can produce a significant spike in the ammonia and nitrite levels. Therefore, a preferred way is to put the substrate into the tank, then feed the tank as if it was stocked with a small number of fish fish. The introduced food is broken down by various bacteria and produces ammonia just as if there was fish in there. Once the nitrite levels drop down to zero, then the system is ready to either introduce livestock or liverock.

Note that it isn't too important how much food is fed, as long as it is an approximation to the load that you want it to be able to handle.

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