You dont need/want to cycle lipo.

As for the nicads, I'd get a cycler, its a cheap investment compared to tearing up a plane or two by failed batteries. I like the Accucycle Elite but there's a lot of good ones out there, and by now there are probably some that are even more flexable.

Cycle the battery and if after a few tries the capacity is 80 percent or below of the rated capacity, discard the battery properly and then replace it.

The nice thing about most of the current cycler/chargers is you can input the cell count and milliamps and it will do the rest of the math for you with the default settings.