nitrates in cycle

Alwmh4 · May 26, 2015

I apologize if I'm not posting this in the correct forum. My question is regarding nitrates in a cycling tank.

I have a 150 ga that I put a table shrimp in to help cycle. After a week, I added anther shrimp in hopes of keeping the bacteria population well fed. Of course I know that a nitrate spike is part of the last of the cycle. My nitrates are about 5ppm. But my question is, if I'm keeping a shrimp in to feed bacteria, How do I know if the nitrates are from the decaying shrimp or if its the tanks final stage of cycle??? With a dead shrimp in the tank, I wont have the tell tell sign of nitrates being zero right? This might be a silly question to an advanced aquarist. I just want to make sure my tank is safe before putting in any livestock.

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 26, 2015

The nitrate that shows up is from nitrogen released from the shrimp and then run through the aquarium nitrogen cycle. The shrimp does not break down directly into nitrate.

FWIW, nitrate being zero is not the goal. It likely won't happen. Ammonia rising then going back to zero is the goal. Ammonia is what you should be concerned with in the nitrogen cycle in a reef tank.

Alwmh4 · May 26, 2015

Hmmm. Well that's the funny part. I haven't really seen an ammonia spike. Nitrites are zero. I used a bottle of bio Spira. Could that have cycled tank in such a short time (less than a week)? I used dead rock and sand. And should I bother putting in another shrimp? It's been a month and no spikes of anything other than nitrates. Installing lights in a couple weeks and then I'm ready for critters if my chemistry is ok

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 26, 2015

I'd just keep watching for a while. One shrimp is fine, but it may take a while to get going. It's been in a week or a month?

zwulfke · May 26, 2015

i have done the same but used my dead tang for ammonia source i got a spike to .50 amm and i took it out yesterday now i am at .25 and 1 nitrite and 80 nitrate. yesterday my nitrite was 1 and nitrate was 40 so I know i have something going on

Alwmh4 · May 26, 2015

Tank has been running for a month. Chemistry has been stable for I know three weeks. If there were any ammonia spikes it was in first week. I only tested once in first week. I MAY have had a tiny ammonia spike in the first week. I say that because I really am not good at seeing yellow from light green but it was never a glaring huge ammonia spike that would have been very easy to read. After first week, I've tested about every three days. Not once has nitrite test shown anything (it's an easy test to read)

zwulfke · May 26, 2015

try to feed some food into the tank and see if you get a spike and then it dissipates because you need to continue to feed the cycle

Alwmh4 · May 26, 2015

Isn't the dead shrimp acting as "food?"
I figured pellets would only add more phosphates. I was going to put another shrimp in today.

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 27, 2015

If there's a dead shrimp there (and it is a human eating size shrimp), adding another likely won't make a difference and the tank may well be "cycled" (although that is not a yes or no issue, but happens to various degrees). I expect the tank is cycled, but adding a little ammonia or a small amount of fish food to test to see if any significant ammonia shows up is a fine plan.

Alwmh4 · May 27, 2015

Will do. Thank you!

BaritoneJP · May 27, 2015

If you want to see how my tank started ... look at my Journal post

I did record a spike in Ammonia and then nitrites, but I didn't have a test kit until about four days into my setup. So I didn't "see" the rise in Ammonia.

I used Seachem's Stability (bacteria in a bottle) and used fish food as an ammonia source. After I saw the Ammonia level go down, I added a small clown fish. I'm not saying I "did it correctly," just saying that is the way I stumbled

upon cycling my tank. I read for two months prior to even buying anything and still muddled my way through it. I have had brown algae (diatoms I'm guessing) come and go and now I have green, in color, algae and also what I'm calling hair algae.

Keep it up and it will come together for you. Just don't get too frustrated, remember to have fun.

I with I read this several days ago and I wouldn't be so frustrated with my nitrates:

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
FWIW, nitrate being zero is not the goal. It likely won't happen. Ammonia rising then going back to zero is the goal. Ammonia is what you should be concerned with in the nitrogen cycle in a reef tank.