Shrimp Cycling

[scu95821]

Are you guys sure abnout this shrimp cycling thing. It just feels wrong.
Do Ineed to do anything special to him? Whole or chopped up.

BTW today is a bad day to go the store to buy one shrimp. Everybody is there buying for T day

 

[scu95821]

Shrimp Away- I put em in whole, chopped up seems like a good idea but since I clearly don't know what I'm doing I'll stick with whole. I can always chop him up later putting him back together not so easy.

 

[Smitty]

Yep, just place a whole one in there...and let the cycling begin.

 

[wontonflip]

I am cycling my 125 w/ just mysis :) I dump some in everytime I fed my fish. Took a while though. After 2 weeks, I finally started to get ammonia, and now, a week after I detected ammonia, I'm finally getting nitrites.

Then again, like I said, I'm in no rush to cycle because I still have to get better heaters. I hope you don't end up stinking up your room! So far, I dont' smell anything from my tank.

 

[scu95821]

Please don't say that. I really dont want a stinky room.

Should I leave my heater on during cycling? Its on now.

What about lights

 

[dcantucson]

I used 3 pieces when I cycled my tank. Got some good stink going .

 

[scu95821]

how long did it take?

 

[dcantucson]

About 4-5 weeks for mine. And there was virtually no smell.

 

[scu95821]

wow thats a long time. would it help if i added another shrimp or somehting??

 

[Melosu58]

This is a pretty good article on cycling with shrimp and not live shrimp.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/articles/articles/3/1/Cycle-your-salt-tank/Page1.html

 

[Hiker4twenty]

I'm going to be switching over to a larger tank. I was thinking of using a shrimp to help cycle the new tank, but I'm also going to seed the tank with some existing LR and sand from my current tank. Will the cycling time still be the same as starting a brand new tank or will the shrimp/LR/sand help speed up the process?

 

[Bifferwine]

It should be faster if you use sand and rock from an established tank, since you already have bacteria in the tank.

 

[scu95821]

I was wondering that too. I have my old 20 gal I want to put at work with a couple fishies in it. I put extra rock in my main tank to cycle and wanted to use the water from my first water change to speed it up. Is that okay or will that water be bad?

 

[project5k]

i think what you are asking is that if you take some water from an established tank and put it in your new one, if thats ok, well its up to you and what you have in the first tank...

if you dont have anything nasty, ich or whatever, then i dont see any problem with it, and infact i would encourage the practice, but if there are things in that first tank that you dont want in the second one, then i wouldnt.

 

[scu95821]

I got nutin. One dead shrimp cycling away.

 

[dcantucson]

Has it cycled yet? :lol:

 

[scu95821]

Its kinda like watching paint dry.

 

[dcantucson]

Oh it gets worse. It can drive you crazy waiting. Tick, tick, tick...

 

[winyfrog]

Your tank will cycle without adding a dead shrimp to it, and its going to cycle just about the same time. I know that you already put the shrimp in it, but I still wonder why people actually do this, it really doesn't make it faster???? If you put uncycled live rock in your tank this will start the nitrogen cycle as well.

as biff mentioned if you add water, sand and rock from an already established tank your tank will be cycled in about 1 week.

 

[dcantucson]

Winy the shrimp is just a psychological booster!