150gal cycle question?..

[JZ199]

I've never had any issues involving cycles on any of my other tanks but I'm a little confused as to if I could have missed my ammonia spike? Or if everything is going on before the ammonia spike, my ammonia test solution wasn't working properly but today I got a new test and ammonia is still zero.

I have a raw shrimp in there, and have been ghost feeding every few days and adding microbacteria daily for establishing the biological filter.

I haven't seen the ammonia spike, but alot of the rock, which was dry, or previously live a few months ago are starting to grow green algea, and also some appear to have diatoms.

My levels are currently
Temperature: 82
PH: 8.0
Ammonia: 0
Nitrates: in between .10 and .20
Nitrites: 0.25

Tank was running for around 2 weeks

 

[brandon429]

very easy to define what is occurring, its too much dilution for that amount of protein breakdown, more shrimp. But consider using ace cleaning ammonia its the exact same ends, all done in about 2 weeks.

shrimp cycling variability has no benefit whatsoever over raw ammonia cycling, and opinions vary on if its worse. its used by thousands so its not really a swing vote, but cycling is about bacteria not algae (always kill algae, don't let it ebb and flow in phases) nor about organic slicks for the water which is what shrimp rot does. shrimp rot has variable ammonia output from a number of conditions, so cleaning ammonia absent the extras and the precise dosing ability can't currently be beaten, ace non surfactant hardware cleaning ammonia.

all that's needed is bottle bac and that tank kept at 3 ppm for two weeks and it can run a fair bioload and begin.

 

[JZ199]

very easy to define what is occurring, its too much dilution for that amount of protein breakdown, more shrimp. But consider using ace cleaning ammonia its the exact same ends, all done in about 2 weeks.

shrimp cycling variability has no benefit whatsoever over raw ammonia cycling, and opinions vary on if its worse. its used by thousands so its not really a swing vote, but cycling is about bacteria not algae (always kill algae, don't let it ebb and flow in phases) nor about organic slicks for the water which is what shrimp rot does. shrimp rot has variable ammonia output from a number of conditions, so cleaning ammonia absent the extras and the precise dosing ability can't currently be beaten, ace non surfactant hardware cleaning ammonia.

all that's needed is bottle bac and that tank kept at 3 ppm for two weeks and it can run a fair bioload and begin.

I was afraid that one little shrimp wasn't enough, can I use pretty much anything that's 100% ammonia from a hardware store? I was reading a little about it before but was nervous about trying it because I wasn't sure how often to dose it and the exact levels, ect...

 

[brandon429]

http://reef2reef.com/threads/new-ta...d-cocktail-shrimp-live-rock-no-shrimp.214618/

check our cycling thread

in the first post we put a link to Morangus' tank, he has a picture of the ammonia bottle in that link, he has class A rocks exactly like yours. Every cycling situation ive seen so far fits into these three classes of rocks in the thread. I know it feels weird to dump a toilet cleaner in the reef tank, but you'll get past that the first time you treat a $150 sps coral frag with bug poison

 

[JZ199]

Wow that thread is exactly what I needed! Just read through all 8 pages of morangus' post... gonna fish out the little shrimp now and head off to ace hardware... thanks alot! Really helped understand the proper way to cycle and test the tank

 

[JZ199]

Just figured I'd fill everyone in, lastnight I added the ace ammonia, I was afraid I added too much because the color was so close between 4 and 8 but today about 16 hours later it's down to 1