The cocktail shrimp are in.......

A

axepilot

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Jan 10, 2005
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I put in two cocktail shrimp three days ago; they are decomposing nicely, and I tried mightily to remove damsels. They dug into the coral so deep that I could not get them out. So, it appears that they are stuck in the tank while it cycles. So far, they are no worse for wear.

Now the strange part:

I'm used to a tank cycling with the ammonia spiking first with an overlapping rise in nitrite. I tested my water before I added the shrimp and the ammonia was 3 ppm, nitrite almost nill. Two days after adding the shrimp, my ammonia is now 1 ppm and the nitrite is off scale high at >5 ppm.

I'm waiting for the ammonia to shoot through the roof, but it's declining. I'm guessing that the next phase is in order to reduce the nitrite. Maybe the live sand is doing it's thing?

All this is happening much faster than I envisioned.
 
What size of tank is it? How long have the Damsels been in there before you decided to go fishless? How many Damsels are there?

It is possible that your cycle already started before adding the shrimp.
 
Tyler,
It's a 75 gallon FO tank. I have 6 damsels in that I was going to use to cycle the tank. Yes, it appears that the cycle has started, even before the shrimp. I'm hoping that the shrimp will cycle a bio-load that will support a fully stocked tank. I'm only looking at 4 or 5 show fish as a stock.
 
The cycle has definitely started. My ammonia is down to zero, the Ph is steady a 8.2, the nitrite is off scale high at >5ppm, and the nitrate is on the rise at 20ppm.

The damsels are still doing fine, with no signs of distress - tough little hombres, they are! The two cocktail shrimp look rather interesting at this point. :) I'm beginning to collect nice brown coating on the coral and sand.
 
With fish in there you should be doing water changes right away. Youi can't combine fishless and fishy cycling. No matter how hardy the damsels are they will get damaged during this process if the nitrite levels are allowed to be above 0.25 ppm.
 
Actually, nitrites aren't that big a deal in SW. The salt ions prevent the nitrite from binding to the fishes gills and reducing their ability to transport oxygen--this is why high nitrites in a FW tank can be 'treated' with salt. in marine systems, tracking nitrites is mostly an exercise in using test kits and monitoring the condition of the nitrifiers--but doesn't harm the fish.
 
TKOS said:
With fish in there you should be doing water changes right away. Youi can't combine fishless and fishy cycling.
Click to expand...

Well, my "old school" ways overcame my "new school" knowledge and I put in the damsels. Believe me, they are fine. They're just as happy, hungry and pugnacious as they were the day they were put in and the tank is indeed cycling.


>>>>
Actually, nitrites aren't that big a deal in SW...................................... in marine systems, tracking nitrites is mostly an exercise in using test kits and monitoring the condition of the nitrifiers--but doesn't harm the fish.<<<<

No Kidding, Orion? Wow! I was always drilled in the fact that nitrites were just as bad juju as ammonia. I'm still going to give the tank more time to cycle just to see the nitrites go down before I add new fish.
 
I guess since the ammonia never really hit a high they were fine. Good to know about the Nitrites. Of course that makes sense now that I read it.
 
The same is also true with Nitrate, alot of fish and inverts can tolorate rather high levels of it, however inverts tend to be more vulnurable to it then fish.
 
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