Does Anyone Here Cycle With Fish?

[Fraoch]

I started my aquarium with a fish cycle with 5 black neon tetras ( as recommended by my lfs) and ended up with 3 dying from the stress of it. I wouldn't really recommend it

 

[Geoff-]

I started with a fish-in cycle with 3 black neons in a 20L tank. All perished, most likely ammonia as I was not doing enough water changes. I since bought an API master kit (was using the useless test strips previously) and 4 serpae tetras and things are going along much better, except I have gone 3-4 days without any water change and the serpaes have gone a bit red-gilled and one is looking stressed. Did 2 changes yesterday and 1 today so fingers crossed. Ammonia's dropped but nitrites are still higher than I'd like (my tap water seems to have nitrites in it already so it's hard to get the level down).

Fish-in can be done without too much stress to the fish but you have to really watch your water parameters and do a lot of water changes. I didn't fancy going through the process with a boring empty tank but it sounds easier to do it that way once you factor in all the water changing.