Alright, so I've had the shrimp in there for 2 weeks and a day. I've tested my ammonia with the Jungle strips (which before I'd always found to be reliable, I work at an LFS where I test water a dozen times on a bad day or so) and I never had any ammonia reading, and I've tested the nitrites today with the the strips as well. Still no reading. However, I am getting a .05 ppm reading for my nitrates, again with the same method. What is going on. The tank really did smell, though that is since gone away, and the skimmer is pulling crap out pretty consistently. Thank you.
Stupid cycle...
- Thread starter VoodooChild
- Start date
No sir. I was planning to add it in as soon the tank was cycled. I was going to order online (I know I did this wrong) and then let it do a little mini-cycle, and then start ordering livestock. Do you suppose I should just order now? If it only mini-cycled, I'm going to take out most of the aragonite and put sand in.
What's the upper limit on those test strips? Could be that you have more ammonia than the strip can accurately detect. Most people only leave the shrimp in for 2-4 days. With the shrimp still in there, you're getting one heck of a lot of ammonia.
Try taking a cup of water from your tank and mixing it with 1 cup of clean (no ammonia) water, and testing that. Keep adding up until you get a reading,or to about 4 cups. More than that and it's unlikely you have that much ammonia. This is a valid method for testing high range values with a low range kit.
Try taking a cup of water from your tank and mixing it with 1 cup of clean (no ammonia) water, and testing that. Keep adding up until you get a reading,or to about 4 cups. More than that and it's unlikely you have that much ammonia. This is a valid method for testing high range values with a low range kit.
I agree with RaVenCAD. Something is not right.
I started with a shrimp cycle five weeks ago and got ammo in a day or two. Did your tank stink really bad for a while? By bad, I mean nasty bad -- did anyone in the house really object?
My ammo is now gone and my NO2 & NO3 are off the charts.
I started with a shrimp cycle five weeks ago and got ammo in a day or two. Did your tank stink really bad for a while? By bad, I mean nasty bad -- did anyone in the house really object?
My ammo is now gone and my NO2 & NO3 are off the charts.
It smelt bad after a couple of days. The room is off in the corner, and the rest of my family thinks that my tanks smell anyways, so they didn't say anything. I noticed, definantly noticed. The shrimp is still in there, but he's pretty jelly-like, I don't know if I can still pick him up. Does that water mixing thing work with NO3? I ran out of test strips for ammonia. Coincidentally, the way I test is the same way the LFS I work at tests. I work tomorrow, so I'll bring in a sample. There are other LFS' around here, but I'm booked till Thursday, so I'll see what I can get otherwise. I'm thinking harder though about replacing that aragonite with sand though. $2.79 for 50 lbs of sand as opposed to 2.79 plus 90 for a refugium. Thanks for all the help. The skimmer is till turning out stuff pretty consistently.
Your running your protein skimmer? Generally you wait till one month till after the tank cycles. This is generally cause skimmers can remove ammonia and nitrite. This could be why you aren't getting a high reading. I cycled my 209 with Live Rock and got a small spike in both amm and nitrite and that was gone by two weeks. Just what I thought I heard about skimmers and cycling. Could be wrong though.