Shrimp Cycle STINKS!

[saltyfilmfolks]

Dont open the bottle when she home.

 

[Tahoe61]

You can run some charcoal to decrease the odor.

Despite peoples best efforts to make a cycle sound complicated it's easy, add small amount of organic matter, like dry fish food or use bacteria in a bottle, sit back for a couple weeks let the tank do it's thing, check chemistry occasionally, do a water change when there is no detectable ammonia or nitrites, stock slowly and feed appropriately.

 

[saltsavage]

You can run some charcoal to decrease the odor.

Despite peoples best efforts to make a cycle sound complicated it's easy, add small amount of organic matter, like dry fish food or use bacteria in a bottle, sit back for a couple weeks let the tank do it's thing, check chemistry occasionally, do a water change when there is no detectable ammonia or nitrites, stock slowly and feed appropriately.

Yea thanks man. Everyone talks about it like it's so complex but as long as you ghost feed it once in a while and keep it rolling it will go through right? Patience is the tough part!

I almost want to buy a damsel and let him cycle in there to give me something to look at haha

 

[mkutsch]

Hmm, are damsels hardier than reef chromis?

 

[Brew12]

Yea thanks man. Everyone talks about it like it's so complex but as long as you ghost feed it once in a while and keep it rolling it will go through right? Patience is the tough part!

I almost want to buy a damsel and let him cycle in there to give me something to look at haha

It really is easy. I wrote an article on it that should be posted soon but for the next tank I set up this is how I will do my cycle.

1) Add a bottle of bacteria product
2) Dose ammonia to 2ppm
3) When ammonia is 0ppm dose to 2ppm
4) When ammonia and nitrite goes from 2ppm to 0ppm in 24 hours, add fish.

No shrimp, no ghost feeding, no 4 week wait. I do this exact thing when I set up my quarantine tank and it is typically ready in 2 days.

 

[mkutsch]

Someone told me about a coral that reduces nitrites, I believe. Anyone know of it? It's fairly common, but I always forget the name...

 

[coral-boss]

I just cycled my new 125 with dr. Tims. I'll never do it without dr tims again. It's so easy and so fast. [emoji106]

 

[Tahoe61]

Yea thanks man. Everyone talks about it like it's so complex but as long as you ghost feed it once in a while and keep it rolling it will go through right? Patience is the tough part!

I almost want to buy a damsel and let him cycle in there to give me something to look at haha

Yup the tank will cycle even with no interventions it just takes a little longer.

A bottle full of water set on a shelf will cycle on it's own if open to air.

Back in the day when we walked up hill in the snow to school saltwater tanks cycled just fine without intervention.

Using live rock, cured if possible and other seeded mediums definitely speeds up the process.

Patience and stocking slowly while allowing the biological filter time to get up to speed between additions is key, the most difficult part is the patience.

 

[Lninwa]

Toss the shrimp and go with a nitrifying bacteria product. I used Dr Tim's along with his ammonia additive

 

[saltsavage]

Toss the shrimp and go with a nitrifying bacteria product. I used Dr Tim's along with his ammonia additive

Just went to the store and got some Dr Tims and some activated carbon to clear the stench. Now we wait!

 

[coral-boss]

Make sure you watch the how to videos online.

 

[saltsavage]

Make sure you watch the how to videos online.

How to add dr tims?

 

[lion king]

With your numbers you are already on your way, you need to do nothing more than just wait. You have plenty high enough ammonia, your nitites are there, and you are already getting nitrates. Just wait until your ammonia and nitites are zero and you are done. If you wanted to add a bottle of bacteria to boost it up, you could but not necessary. It would speed it along but you obviously already have a biological foundation. I use bio spira with great results.

 

[saltsavage]

With your numbers you are already on your way, you need to do nothing more than just wait. You have plenty high enough ammonia, your nitites are there, and you are already getting nitrates. Just wait until your ammonia and nitites are zero and you are done. If you wanted to add a bottle of bacteria to boost it up, you could but not necessary. It would speed it along but you obviously already have a biological foundation. I use bio spira with great results.

Cool thanks! Gonna put Dr Tims in and then update

 

[saltsavage]

It really is easy. I wrote an article on it that should be posted soon but for the next tank I set up this is how I will do my cycle.

1) Add a bottle of bacteria product
2) Dose ammonia to 2ppm
3) When ammonia is 0ppm dose to 2ppm
4) When ammonia and nitrite goes from 2ppm to 0ppm in 24 hours, add fish.

No shrimp, no ghost feeding, no 4 week wait. I do this exact thing when I set up my quarantine tank and it is typically ready in 2 days.

What did you use to dose ammonia?

 

[Brew12]

What did you use to dose ammonia?

Dr Tims. I couldn't find any pure ammonia around where I live. Our Ace Hardware went out of business.

 

[BlueCursor]

Using a shrimp to cycle only works if it is a fresh shrimp that has never been frozen. A previously frozen adds no bacteria to the process. You just get rot.

 

[saltsavage]

Using a shrimp to cycle only works if it is a fresh shrimp that has never been frozen. A previously frozen adds no bacteria to the process. You just get rot.

Good to know. I'm going to use Dr Tims now and see how it goes.

 

[nervousmonkey]

Oh, and don't have any air fresheners-- causes velvet in marine tanks.

Huh? Velvet is a dinoflagellate. Unless air fresheners carry dinos for freshening air, maybe. Alternately, there could be a correlation to a chemical in an air freshener that "activates" for lack of a better word, inactive velvet, which I don't know about. I have never experienced my tanks awakening with a dormant strain of velvet when an air freshener passes by, but maybe there are tanks out there like that.

 

[cmcoker]

Yes, I know, but no one I know was ever patient enough, so I always tell them at their own risk, wait at least until it's under 0.75 or 0.50... neither was I, during the first time, heh. But yeah, I guess you should definitely wait!

I think maybe someome meant that velvet could aerosolize (spread into the air in water mist, like from a bubbler) from one tank to another, not that it came from an aerosol air freshener. But I've read some strange things before so who knows what was said..
Regardless I agree with above, velvet doesn't come from air freshener, but can be spread through the air from one tank to another..