Cycling saltwater tank

[Jenn_737700]

So i've heard that some people put a cocktail shrimp into their aquarium, and that starts the cycle...

Should I use this method to cycle my tank? If so, how long do I put it in for?

:biggrin:

[Magma]

Drop a raw shrimp into the tank and test the ammonia untill you see it at about 1 or 2ppm, then take it out (proably take 2 or 3 days at least but all depends on tank size) then take it out and ride out the cycle until ammonia and nitrite are 0 and nitrates show up.

My tank took about 3 weeks to cycle this way, with 2lbs of rock per gal..

[Jenn_737700]

ohkay. Will do.

Thanks:smile:

[pirate]

If you are starting out with live rock just let it do its thing.

[Skimmerking]

Jen u could always buy that hagen cycle and pour the ful bottle in and have it ready t go sooner I sear buy it. Ask around. I told. Lance about here for his225 gal and he couldn't believe it worked

[Beanz]

yea i used the hagen cycle stuff when i started my 45 and it worked really well.

[daniella3d]

They never worked for me. I tried all of them, including cycle and it did not work. What work is to put cured liverock and that give you practicaly instant cycle.

When I put up my quarantine tank I use a few pieces of liverock from my frag tank and never have any ammonia. Of course I do not use medication that will kill the bacteria or else that would kill the liverock but for Paraguard or prazipro, it work well to get an instant cycle and no worry about ammonia.


yea i used the hagen cycle stuff when i started my 45 and it worked really well.

[Lampshade]

I used Brightwell micro bacter7, worked great! i seeded my new tank before the transfer, and things had settled out in only a few days.

http://www.brightwellaquatics.com/products/microbacter7.php

[asylumdown]

the 320 that's going in the wall of my new house is going to be stocked with 80% eco rock. Not because I'm an environmentalist, but because I'm going to lose my mind if my next tank gets taken over by aiptasia too.

I'm going to cycle the the dead stuff using raw shrimp (or raw scallop, or fish, or any kind of seafood really - it just needs to rot) as I won't be adding the live rock until well after there are fish in the tank. I've used the raw shrimp method on 3 tanks and I wouldn't use anything different. I used it on my current 90 gallon, as when I first set it up I was running a fluval Fx5 canister on it. It took about 7 days for the ammonia & nitrite levels to spike, then fall off to nothing.

It doesn't even need to be raw shrimp, cooked shrimp decomposes just as well, and produce just as much ammonia. I don't think you can over cycle either, I'm pretty sure the bacterial colonies grow to the size of the available food, so if you were to put in say a dozen shrimp, your ammonia spike would be higher, but your resulting bacterial colony would also be bigger. It would smell to high heaven while it was working though.

[imcosmokramer]

I've always just used liverock, and let it do it's thing