Starting a cycle

[vanreefer]

Originally Posted by albert_dao

Never understood the dead shrimp thing. All you're doing is delaying the presence of ammonia (ergo, the presence of bacteria which can metabolize the ammonia) until the shrimp decays. Skip all that and just add ammonia til you get a .3ppm reading. Seed with some bacteria via product or liverock. From here, you have two options:

1. Wait and test til good. 90% water change - GO!
2. Hit with a ton of VSV til you get a bacterial bloom, then wait for it to go away. 90% water change - GO! (this is a bit more advance but sets you up for an algae-less cycle)

Either way, it's bulletproof.

Any sense on how much ammonia needed to get ~ 40 gal to .3ppm? Was thinking this makes more sense than adding a rotten shrimp