Can freshwater cycle with Shrimp?

[Daniel_MoY]

Can you cycle your freshwater tank with a dead shrimp in it like the saltwater tanks? or only with pure amonia drops?

[silentskream]

shrimps work just fine 8)

[Dwarf Puffers]

Lol, I thought at first you were cycling with live ones :eek: :hitting:

[jm1212]

it should work.

adding some fish food will help make ammoina also. make sure that the ammoina levels dont go to high though. ammoina over 6ppm will stall the cycle.

[southpaw]

I have seen many people on here have good experience using shrimp ...but I think it would be easier using pure ammonia since you can control the amount more precise ....But if you cant find a good source for pure ammonia then a shrimp will work.....Like jm1212 said you need to keep the ammonia under 6ppm and with liquid ammonia you can dose it as needed and keep it at a more constant level IMO

[Chele&Luke]

Yep - sure can!!

Doesn't smell as bad as people say it does either ;)

You will probably have to change your dead shrimp over part way through the cycle tho, they get pretty scummy pretty fast...

Still WAY easier than dosing with ammonia IMO :)

[Sovran]

What kind of shrimp? Normal shrimp you buy in the supermarket? or like a dead ghost shrimp?

[silentskream]

either one.

if you used ghost shrimp you'd probably need several though... they're awfully little.

[Sovran]

seems sort of callous to buy them and just kill them off. Think I will use a frozen one from the supermarket

[Daniel_MoY]

Well I went looking for pure amonia ... you know how hard that is to find? I mean Wow... had to go to 4 or 5 different stores and finaly I found it at Schields.... went to the LFS, figuring I would get some there, only to find out that they sell "starter fish" for that, no reason to go out and get amonia.

[Sovran]

Well I went looking for pure amonia ... you know how hard that is to find? I mean Wow... had to go to 4 or 5 different stores and finaly I found it at Schields.... went to the LFS, figuring I would get some there, only to find out that they sell "starter fish" for that, no reason to go out and get amonia.

Wow = talk about callous!

[southpaw]

Ace Hardware has the ammonia....comes in a gallon jug.. "Janitorial Strength Formula"

A gallon will last you forever :)

[Chele&Luke]

My 'shrimp' was actually a frozen prawn from the local supermarket.

'Stinky' worked well on his lonesome in a 15 gallon tank - not sure what size you will be cycling, but if it was 30 gallon I'd go for 2 etc...

I put him in a nylon 'knee high' stocking to keep the yukky bits from floating around (tho some did when he got a lil ... errrr ... fuzzy!!

Thawed him out, bundled him up and hung him over the side. Did testing every other day and had my ammonia and nitrite spikes in the first week...

Not too sure how long the nitrate would have taken under 'normal' circumstances - it looks like some java moss I bought from the lfs and tossed in 7 days after starting seeded my tank and I was good to go, after a few days of consistent readings I put in all my fishies on day 14.

All levels (Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate) have stayed completely stable over the last 1.5 weeks post fish.

I tried the "add ammonia" technique at my old place with the 10 gallon, maybe it's a small tank thing but I found it really horrible and frustrating... Not enuff, not enuff, TOO MUCH!! = water changes....

I suspect it is WAY easier to do with a larger tank tho.

Good luck with whichever way you decide to do it :)

[NewObsession]

So do you add ammonia and then shrimp to feed it? Or can you just put the shrimp in and let it make it's own ammonia?

[silentskream]

the shrimp makes its own ammonia. no extra ammonia is needed unless for some reason the shrimp totally decays before your cycle is ready (which doesn't happen)
the only downside to the shrimp method is that its a little gross having a dead rotting shrimp in the bottom of your fishtank.

[Chele&Luke]

You just have to fire in the shrimp (prawn), and leave it to do it's thing. Because I was only doing a 15g I only had the one in there, and I was looking at pulling him out and putting in a new one - they DO get pretty scummy in not that longer time. Tho they might last a little bit longer if you don't hang them directly over the airstone!!

If you were putting in a second replacement one I would also give them a couple of days overlap to allow the second one to get nice and 'gooey' too :)

And DEFINITELY put them in a nylon stocking or something/anything that will contain their lil remains or I imagine your first gravel vac would be awful!

I didn't find the view that 'bad' with 'Stinky" (yeah I named him!), but then I was quite fascinated by the whole process and when you haven't got any fish in there it gives you 'something' to look at and monitor!

I never wanted snails either - but it was the same thing when I had some hitchhike in on the moss, I'd run to the tank first thing in the morning and (try - they hide!!) count noses. Now I'm reluctantly fond of the little sods and haven't the heart to get rid of them! ;)

No problem evicting 'Stinky' at the end of the cycle tho :grinyes:

[Daniel_MoY]

For the snails ... I was told if you stick a cucumber in there at night before you go to bed, when you get up all the snails will be on the cucumber and you can just take them out. Not sure if it's true, haven't had to try it.

How bad was the smell.. I live in an appartment complex and I dont want to stink up the place. not a whole lot of good ventalation here.

[Chele&Luke]

Firstly I put a bit of cucumber in for the corys, I have ONE of my snails on it at the moment - so I guess it could be 'one down' if I felt like getting rid of it - maybe larger snails are more 'hungry' for cucumber than the babies I have... Someone with more 'snail experience' could answer this one better for you :)

As for the smell, I honestly didn't find it that bad!! Do you have covers/hood over your tank? It's spring here so not super hot right now, not sure if that would have an impact on the smell - the tank is still the same temperature sooo *shrugs*

There were two days total where testing the water wasn't that wonderful, but there was never a really bad aroma in the vicinity of the tank, remember it IS decomposing under water! Of course some people may have more sensitive noses than mine - my almost 16 month old bub is still in diapers and I gotta tell you 'Stinky' never even came close... :grinyes:

I certainly don't think you could come close to stinking out an apartment complex - I had visitors in my living room (where the tank is) while 'Stinky' was in residence and nobody even noticed...

ADD ON

Try and end your cycle the day before the trash goes out if you can!! I was ONE day over and ended up giving 'Stinky' to my ex to take home after visiting bub, for his trash coz I sure wouldn't want to have had Stinky hanging around in the air for another week!! Tho to be honest he was hardly stinky at all when I pulled him out (or he would never have made it to the car!!)

The reason I'm saying this is because I trashed the Neon I lost to the filter 36-odd hours before the trash went out and WHEEEEEWWW - who would have thought such a tiny lil fishie could smell THAT bad...

[irishspy]

I was about to ask this very question when I found this thread. AC saves the day again! :headbang2: :clap:


If you were putting in a second replacement one I would also give them a couple of days overlap to allow the second one to get nice and 'gooey' too :)

Oh, goody. Something to look forward to. :yuck: :barf:

[THE V]

What is this fascination with using shrimp. The shrimp is only a protein source. Just about any clean protein source will work. A piece of chicken for fish will work just as nicely. I personally just use the fish food. I dump in daily the amount of food that I expect to be feeding the fully stocked tank. I personally think that this is a better method than just adding ammonia to the tank. Fish waste includes more than just urea. This allows for the other classes of bacteria to get established.

For my FW tanks, it also speeds up the process by putting a few plants in the tank right at the start. The plants carry a lot of the bacteria 0.
with them and give it a head start. I normally have my tank cycled in less than 3 weeks this way. As an added bonus the plants have a nice quarantine period at the beginning.

[Chele&Luke]

My fascination with using shrimp (which was actually a prawn) was the appeal of it being completely idiot proof and no hassles.

1 Prawn = 15 gallons

Tie it up, chuck it in, wait!!

I tried with using ammonia on the 10g first and failed dismally - all those water changes just kept driving me nuts, not to mention daily dosing.

I imagine I would find adding fish food daily just as frustrating to find the 'right' amount.

Chicken or fish will work just as nicely - I guess the prawn is a nice size to start out with, if you need more you can add another really easily and cheaply. Also chicken and fish tend to get cooked and EATEN in this house ;)

Not disagreeing at all, I know a lot of people loathe the idea of something dead floating around their nice new tank :D

It ended up being the simplest, fastest, most idiot proof way for me, and I would definitely use this method again if I was starting from scratch :)

Oh yeah - DEFINITELY agree with you about the plants!!

[Margaret1975]

That's how I cycled my 90 gallon and it worked great. Just threw in a couple of frozen shrimp and tested the water once a week until the tank was cycled.

[montysmum]

Hiya, I started my fishless cycle with frozen prawns. I put a bunch of them in the leg of a clean pair of tights and dangled that in the tank. The only thing I found was that it was difficult to know exactly how many needed to be added to try and get an ammonia level of 5ppm.

I perservered with them for a couple of weeks or so but then transferred over to liquid ammonia which was a lot easier to control.