cycling with raw shrimp

[wannabefishguru]

a couple of questions, i am in the process of cycling with raw shrimp after not finding pure ammonia. now when do i remove the shrimp, when the ammonia is where i want it or what?

now after i have added the shrimp i realized that maybe my tank is now a giant pool of salmenela bacteria, is it? or is it not?


p.s. i am using black tahitian sand and fyi, its a hassle to clean it. just a side note for more useless information that we collect.

[z71silverado98]

who told you to drop raw shrimp into your tank!? :thud:

how long has it been in there?

how big of a tank?

what fish do you want to keep?

I'd drain and rinse everything. Fill the tank again, and let it sit overnight.

[RTR]

Rotting shimp has been a standard practice in SW for years. NIMT.

Sorry but I have never used the technique, so no personal experience, but I suppose you just monitor the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate as in any other cycle.

[wannabefishguru]

i did, i thought that it was a method to cycle a tank.
FW
29gallon
blackskirt tetras, weather loach, upside down catfish.

[wannabefishguru]

i did, i thought that it was a method to cycle a tank.
FW
29gallon
blackskirt tetras, weather loach, upside down catfish.


about a week

[cherrypie]

Shrimp should still work well, last tank I established a cycle in, I just filled with the glass shrimp I was using for feeders (needed somewhere to store them), turns out they're highly ammonia sensitive (or at least this australian variety is), I hit 0.25ppm ammonia on the following day and all but three died. I quickly pulled the three survivors out and dropped them in my brackish tank (Food time!!!). The following day ammonia was well over 10ppm and I thought, "hey I'll let this run its course", 4 days later ammonia was dropping fairly rapidly and my kit could actually measure it without dilution. Nitrites were starting to come up fairly rapidly at this time and after 4 days wait they started to drop quickly. Seeing that I had a reasonably established cycle I did a little vac, sucked up the majority of the dead shrimp and did about a 30% water change. I was only getting nitrate readings the following day, so replaced about 80% of the water, removed the last shrimp bits and added some new feeder fish, everything ran fine from there on.

[z71silverado98]

well it might be the SW practice, but rotting shrimp seems a little dangerous.
Id rather cycle w/ a few snails or a guppy or 2

[Ms.Bubbles]

Or you could just use fish food. Much cheaper than shrimp & no salmonella.

[wannabefishguru]

oh so i have gone and f uped again, crap

[Corax]

No, you've done fine. Shrimp cycling is fine for fresh as well as salt. Leave the shrimp in the tank to fully dissolve. It'll turn into a floating mass of translucent goo that looks like a shrimp till you poke it. Very weird looking to see another liquid ripple underwater. Monitor your ammonia and watch for it to go down. Then do the same for the nitrite. A shrimp provides a MASSIVE blast of ammonia to the tank and will generate a large bacteria colony. After the ammonia and nitrite both peak and vanish completely, do a nearly complete water change and you'll be ready to stock whatever you want. btw, if this isn't a large volume tank, like a 55g or bigger, expect a serious stink from that shrimp. I did a 29g with shrimp once and my wife almost killed me lol


Oh and........

z71silverado98
"Male well it might be the SW practice, but rotting shrimp seems a little dangerous.
Id rather cycle w/ a few snails or a guppy or 2 "

Perhaps you aren't familiar with fishless cycling? Perhaps you should educate yourself on this more humane, more efficient method of cycling before you go around giving bad advice? Let me give you the basics of why his tank is better than your tank..

55g tank + 2 guppies = a tank cycled that is capable of supporting 2 guppies. Any thing beyond the 2 guppies is going to cause what is known as a "mini-cycle", and all that is, is the bacteria colony being overwhelmed and growing to consume the newly available food source (ammonia). Until the bacteria colonoy reproduces in suffucient numbers to consume the excess ammonia, you'll be doing water changes or scooping up dead fish.

55g tank + shrimp, or other fishless cycling that maintains obnoxiously high ammonia levels for any length of time = a tank that can support anything that produces up to that obnoxiously high level of ammonia. For example, your 2 guppies might produce enough ammonia to maintain a 2ppm level at all times, they dont, but for the sake of argument, let's assume they do. Now, once your cycle is complete, anything above that 2ppm is more than your tank can handle right away, so it'll be toxic to the fish in your tank. In the shrimp cycled tank, that probably maintained closer to 30-40 ppm during the cycle, you are going to be able to support a more dense population right away. Now, the other side of the hill is, if you cycle with shrimp, and maintain that 30-40ppm, then anything less than that level is going to starve your bacteria colony. So, if you throw a big fat Oscar in there, he's gonna maintain your 30-40ppm easily. But if you put one little baby Oscar in there, he might only put out 5ppm. So, the colony will begin to die off. Well, the bacteria doesn't really die, it just goes dormant.

Long story short, a strong cycle is a good cycle. So don't go hatin on methods you don't understand without first looking a little deeper.. ;) People a lot smarter than you or I figured this stuff out, and it works beautifully.

[wannabefishguru]

so i basically leave the shrimp in there tell i have no ammonia or nitrite reading, is this correct?

[rosita]

No, you've done fine. Shrimp cycling is fine for fresh as well as salt. Leave the shrimp in the tank to fully dissolve. It'll turn into a floating mass of translucent goo that looks like a shrimp till you poke it. Very weird looking to see another liquid ripple underwater. Monitor your ammonia and watch for it to go down. Then do the same for the nitrite. A shrimp provides a MASSIVE blast of ammonia to the tank and will generate a large bacteria colony. After the ammonia and nitrite both peak and vanish completely, do a nearly complete water change and you'll be ready to stock whatever you want. btw, if this isn't a large volume tank, like a 55g or bigger, expect a serious stink from that shrimp. I did a 29g with shrimp once and my wife almost killed me lol


Oh and........

z71silverado98
"Male well it might be the SW practice, but rotting shrimp seems a little dangerous.
Id rather cycle w/ a few snails or a guppy or 2 "

Perhaps you aren't familiar with fishless cycling? Perhaps you should educate yourself on this more humane, more efficient method of cycling before you go around giving bad advice? Let me give you the basics of why his tank is better than your tank... . . . .

Long story short, a strong cycle is a good cycle. So don't go hatin on methods you don't understand without first looking a little deeper.. ;) People a lot smarter than you or I figured this stuff out, and it works beautifully.

Corax, I really need to commend you on such an informative, exemplary way of explaining to someone why their methods might be wrong for others and/or themselves. So often people just flame others without thinking about where they're coming from. Empathy....seems to be a rapidly dying quality; I have more trouble finding others with it. Bravo. ~renee

[webcricket]

Wow, never heard of this method. You learn something new every day around here. It gives me a case of the yucks though!

[joephys]

Corax, I really need to commend you on such an informative, exemplary way of explaining to someone why their methods might be wrong for others and/or themselves. So often people just flame others without thinking about where they're coming from. Empathy....seems to be a rapidly dying quality; I have more trouble finding others with it. Bravo. ~renee

Its seems to me that Corax did more flaming than silverado. He has never heard of the shrimp method and actually asked about it, he then sounded skeptical. Personally I would be too. On the surface of things, it dosn't sound like a good idea to me either. I would want more than one person (quite a few actually) telling me its ok to let some dead creature rot in my tank.

If I had no access to pure ammonia, I would do fishy cycle. If it is done correctly with the correct fish, ammonia levels should stay low enough that it doesn't cause any undue stress to the fish at all. Once the cycle is complete, adding the fish slowly will not produce enough ammonia that the bacteria can't handle it, they are pretty hungry bacteria, and don't take to long to grow to needed sizes once they are established.

[wannabefishguru]

the point with fishless cycle is to pretty much explode your tank with bacteria so you can fully stock in one shot. and yes i didn't look to hard for ammonia and went with what i knew, either fishless or fishy cycle, and fishy cycle is to much work.

so back to the question, do i just leave the shrimp in until ammonia and nitrite is zero'ed out or when my ammonia levels are at the right level?

[Corax]

There was no flaming intended, but if that came across, so be it. I'm not one to sugar coat the facts I'm talking about.

joe, what you are describing is exactly why I find using a few fish to cycle with to be completely wasted time. Why build just a foundation when you can build the entire house in the same amount of time?

webcricket, it is pretty nasty to look at and smell, but it does wonders for your tank. As I said, in a 29g, using 1 shrimp almost got me killed by my wife. But in a 55g, using 2 shrimp, there was no odor. Oh, FYI, you should use 1 jumbo cocktail shrimp (fresh not frozen if at all possible) per 30 gallons of water volume.

Given a choice, I'd rather go with the pure ammonia. But the shrimp way works well too. When I rebuild my 55g sometime around Christmas, you can bet I'll be doing one of the 2 methods instead of using tiny little sacrifical fish.. Not only is it more humane, but it is also much more effective and controllable. I never thought I'd see people preaching against fishless cycling. Dissapointing =(

Rosita, flaming is easy, so is telling someone they're wrong. The hard part is to explain WHY someone is wrong and to make them understand it without getting offended. I'm a very blunt person, and if someone is being an idiot I'll be happy to let them know it. But I also try to educate if possible. I thought it was possible here, so I tried to explain it. I hope the guy learned something, even if it did offend him...

wannabe, yes, you let the shrimp completely vanish. It'll sit and sit and sit, then suddenly one day it'll just vanish and you'll wonder where it went. After that, watch your ammonia, then your nitrite. I say watch the nitrite afterwards for the simple fact that as long as you have ANY ammonia, the nitrite isn't important. Yer just wasting test kit until the ammonia is at a safe level (the only safe level for ammonia is 0ppm) It goes in stages. Also, you notice I've not said anything about testing for nitrate? That's because when you do the massive water change at the end, all the nitrate that is building up (and it is building up, we just don't care right now) is going to be thrown out with the water. FYI, the water you'll be throwing out is great for watering plants. It's essentially liquid fertilizer at that point. Plants love nitrate.

[z71silverado98]

z71silverado98
Perhaps you aren't familiar with fishless cycling? Perhaps you should educate yourself on this more humane, more efficient method of cycling before you go around giving bad advice? Let me give you the basics of why his tank is better than your tank..[]...
;) People a lot smarter than you or I figured this stuff out, and it works beautifully.

"Blah blah blah blah, so be it"

you dont know anything about my tank!

I know im not preaching against fishless cycling
Perhaps you should consider a little etiquite and more careful reading of post before you go bashing someone?

Im familiar w/ fishless cycling, and i never said there was anything wrong w/ the method, id just choose a different medium than rotting shrimp. especially inside of a house!

and how is cycling w/ a few snails bad advice, works quite well and lets newbies add fish a few at a time instead of dumping 20 something fish in a tank and having to care for all of them right off the bat. dump 20 fish at a cost of $30+ into a tank and have them all die cause youve just started the hobby or buy 2 fish and find out you cant keep these fish alive then move onto something a little hardier. which is more humane?

attacking someone to make yourself look smarter, well done! oh and dropping words like idiot, moron or what ever else when refering to this person, CLASSY!

[marapets]

how big is the tank?

[joephys]

Corax, it takes maybe a week longer, not that much time, and cycling a tank is never wasted time. No one ever argued against fishless cycling. All that was said was that fishy cycling is an option.


....Let me give you the basics of why his tank is better than your tank...


I'm a very blunt person, and if someone is being an idiot I'll be happy to let them know it.

I am sure you aren't perfect in every way since on one is. If someone where to speak like that to you, I am sure that you would be offended and not care about what they had to say. People don't listen to the advice of people who talk down to them.

[wannabefishguru]

corax, about roughly how long did it take for your shrimp in your 29 gallon to vanish?
i have these 2 jumbo shrimp in my 29 and they don't smell and they are raw just to let you know.

figuratively speaking what if my ammonia is right off the charts and they have not dissappeared yet, can i just remove them? and continue a good cycle or what?

[Corax]

Corax, it takes maybe a week longer, not that much time, and cycling a tank is never wasted time. No one ever argued against fishless cycling. All that was said was that fishy cycling is an option.

I am sure you aren't perfect in every way since on one is. If someone where to speak like that to you, I am sure that you would be offended and not care about what they had to say. People don't listen to the advice of people who talk down to them.

When I see someone dogging a method I know for a fact is highly efficient and works very well, I'll educate them. He is advocating a cruel method of cycling and that kind of 1970's thinking needs to be stamped out whenever it is found. All serious keepers that I know strongly oppose cycling with fish.



corax, about roughly how long did it take for your shrimp in your 29 gallon to vanish?
i have these 2 jumbo shrimp in my 29 and they don't smell and they are raw just to let you know.

figuratively speaking what if my ammonia is right off the charts and they have not dissappeared yet, can i just remove them? and continue a good cycle or what?

About 2 weeks as I recall. After that, the ammonia level kept my test kit maxed for 2 weeks. You could remove it if you want, but it really isn't going to speed the process up much. I suggest rubber gloves and a lot of anti-bacterial soap if you go diving in that tank. As I said, I use 1 per 30 gallons, so you've doubled that. Pulling them shouldn't hurt a thing, but don't expect the levels to go down until the bacteria can handle the levels. I'm amazed that 2 aren't stinking you out of the house. Do you have a filter running? With carbon? When I do it, I run 2 powerheads to circulate the water, and nothing else.

Also... The goal of doing a massive cycle isn't to add 20 fish the first day. It's to add 5 fish with a LOT of room for expansion in the next couple weeks. Cycling shouldn't harm or endanger any living creature in any way at all. Snails, fish, whatever... All life deserves equal respect. Just because a Danio costs 99 cents doesn't make it worth less than something more expensive. Life is life.

[z71silverado98]

it doesnt matter how massive of a bacteria colony you develop w/ the raw shrimp, if you dont match the bioload you will lose all but the bacteria that can live off of the 5 or so fish. then you add 5 more and the bacteria colony grow to accomodate.

GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD! i dont have a prob. w/ fishless cycling! id just prefer to do it w/ fishfood!

SHOW ME WHERE I SAID IT WAS A BAD IDEA?! i questioned it, then said "id do it..." this way, to paraphrase "if it were me starting out i would go about it this way."

just seems your hard-headed and confrontational. Ill be blunt too, if someones acting like a jerk, ill let 'em know.

MTS or any other small snail can live through a cycle w/out harm, its not bad advice! If i were setting up a restaurant aquarium id fishless w/ flakes to match what they can handle. If i were helping a newbie id recommend snails so they can get acustomed to the routine before throwing cash on a bunch of fish.

[Corax]

it doesnt matter how massive of a bacteria colony you develop w/ the raw shrimp, if you dont match the bioload you will lose all but the bacteria that can live off of the 5 or so fish. then you add 5 more and the bacteria colony grow to accomodate.

GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD! i dont have a prob. w/ fishless cycling! id just prefer to do it w/ fishfood!

SHOW ME WHERE I SAID IT WAS A BAD IDEA?! i questioned it, then said "id do it..." this way, to paraphrase "if it were me starting out i would go about it this way."

just seems your hard-headed and confrontational. Ill be blunt too, if someones acting like a jerk, ill let 'em know.

MTS or any other small snail can live through a cycle w/out harm, its not bad advice! If i were setting up a restaurant aquarium id fishless w/ flakes to match what they can handle. If i were helping a newbie id recommend snails so they can get acustomed to the routine before throwing cash on a bunch of fish.

The bacteria colony that doesn't have sufficient food doesn't die, it goes dormant. Meaning, once the ammonia levels return to the previous levels, the bacteria comes back faster. Meaning, the future mini-cycles will be hours instead of days. :read:

[daveedka]

Read this article: Cycling a tank (http://aquariumboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26)




the point with fishless cycle is to pretty much explode your tank with bacteria so you can fully stock in one shot. and yes i didn't look to hard for ammonia and went with what i knew, either fishless or fishy cycle, and fishy cycle is to much work.

Fishy cycling in a humane manner is a lot of work, and unnecessary. It can be done and done properly, but it is labor intensive.

The downside to not using ammonia is the ability to control levels. high levels of ammonia counteract the growth of the Nitrite eaters, and slow the cycle unnecessarily.
Whether fish food shrimp or anything else is used they will work, but are not the easiest option. If I were to use something like this, I would probably add a nd remove the rotting agent as needed to maintain levels in the 4-5 pm range for the first part of the cycle, and then in the 3-4 range once nitrites reach testable levels. Leaving the shrimp sit threre will get the job done, but the extra high ammonia, and additional pollutants are not needed, May be counterproductive and therefore would be a negative in my book.



The bacteria colony that doesn't have sufficient food doesn't die, it goes dormant. Meaning, once the ammonia levels return to the previous levels, the bacteria comes back faster. Meaning, the future mini-cycles will be hours instead of days.

This is actually False Corax, Bacteria dies off to available food levels, available O2 levels and or Available surface area. A good base colony can consume much more food than it needs to survive, so it will compensate for reasonable increases in bio-load. Since bacteria reproduces by splitting, it's reproduction is exponential and therefore a good base colony will increase quickly to compensate for increases. Either way it does die off and anything more than reasonable increases will create a significant situation for fish.

Additionally a few days without any kind of dosed food (Ammonia) and you will lose your colony at which time you will need to start over completely.

Dave

[Ms.Bubbles]

[QUOTE=daveedka]Read this article: Cycling a tank (http://aquariumboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26)

The link leads to another forum, which requires registration before being able to read it. Isn't there an article on cycling a tank here at AC? There used to be!

Does anybody want to write one? Cycling a tank is probably the single most important thing a new aquarium owner needs to know, so a detailed article would really be helpful on this site...

[RTR]

I think that we are polarizing this a bit too heavily. No one argued flatly against fishless cycling as such, nor flatly argued that there is any special lack from fishless cycling.

Fishless cycling is not a single technique, it is a process which can be achieved by various techniques. It can be done with ammonia, as codified by Nomad (Dr. Cris Cow) and popularized by him and the crew from Tom's Place years ago., It can be done with dry chemicals if you have the access and a good analytical scale, as had been done in SW year ago. That technique established the nitrite-oxidizers first, BTW, to which there are certain advantages. It may also be done with fish food, which offers the advantge of establishing the heterotrophs and saprophytes at the same time, which the ammonia-only process does not. It can be done with a sufficient quantity (biomass) of common snails and feeding them heavily. It can be done with rotting meat, as the shrimp technique employs. Thare may well be other variants which I have not done or heard about, But of those, I would select the household ammonia-based process as the technique of choice for novices. It does teach the use of hobby test kits (and some of the hassles of that) and the highly important fact IMHO that what you can't see can adversley affect or kill your fish.

ALL of those processes can work, all have both pluses and minuses. Everybody has their own tank and has free choice of which which technique they elect to use for themselves. None is absolutel;y right, or wrong. All are valid. That does not mean that all or equal in ease or in side issues. The possible/probable/IMHO likely stench of a smelly tank with a rotting shrimp precludes my using that particular technique. It is wrong for me. That does not mean that is wrong for any other particular indivual hobbyist.

[daveedka]

The link leads to another forum, which requires registration before being able to read it. Isn't there an article on cycling a tank here at AC? There used to be! Does anybody want to write one?

I have linked it several times and more than one person has read it without giving me this complaint. I will check into it's accessability before linking it again though. I am also checking into making it publicly accessable so the link will work for anyone. I do not know how tha will end up though.

additionally that same article is still posted here in the articles forum. I link the new site because it is my primary, and within a very short time a revised and improved version with photo's and quick links will be posted there. The revised article will be better than the original writing for general useand navigation while the information will be the same.


dave

[twig]

Corax, it takes maybe a week longer, not that much time, and cycling a tank is never wasted time. No one ever argued against fishless cycling. All that was said was that fishy cycling is an option.





I am sure you aren't perfect in every way since on one is. If someone where to speak like that to you, I am sure that you would be offended and not care about what they had to say. People don't listen to the advice of people who talk down to them.

I personally wouldn't be offended. :o

Grow some skin and enjoy a debate.
People can disagree with you. That disagreement is what forums thrive on.

[Ms.Bubbles]

OK, daveedka's article link now fixed + I found the link to it here on AC:

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64301

[wannabefishguru]

im thinking that i should pull the shrimp out at an ammonia level oh lets say off the charts and ride the cycle out. i was too thinking it would be counterproductive to leave the shrimp in with an ammonia level achieved. so i will pull out my shrimp using my rubber gloves when my ammonia levels reach off the chart, does this sound like a plan?

[RTR]

and if the ammonia level declines to zero before the cycle is complete?

[wannabefishguru]

huh i thought that i would want to have the ammonia at zero, nitrite at zero and the nitrate off the charts in order to have the cycle complete

[Roan Art]

huh i thought that i would want to have the ammonia at zero, nitrite at zero and the nitrate off the charts in order to have the cycle complete
He means what if the ammonia goes to 0 before the nitrites get established. You'll have 0 nitrates as well. They will starve to death.

Nitrite eating bacteria are much more fragile than those that process ammonia and high ammonia levels will prevent them from colonizing.

You can do a search here for threads on high ammonia cycles. Most that went over 3ppm had extreme difficulties finishing the cycle. It stalled.

Roan

[wannabefishguru]

so i need to pull my shrimp out now then, is this correct?

[Ms.Bubbles]

No, you need to continue feeding your filter some kind of ammonia (whether as shrimp, fish food, or pure ammonia) to get an ammonia reading of about 5 ppm or less (Roan suggests 3 ppm, Chris Cow recommends less than 5 ppm). As you keep adding ammonia over the days, you'll begin to see nitrites as well as ammonia (keep adding ammonia source, but less) then ammonia will zero out (keep adding), then nitrites will zero out too (presto, you're cycled). Time for water change.

In other words, there needs to be a constant supply of ammonia going into the tank in order to complete the tank's cycle. Once you see nitrite levels begin to develop in your tank, you should reduce the amount of ammonia being added (say, to about half the original amount).

[RTR]

Chris suggested 5 ppm to start, then cutting that approximately in half once nitrite appeared. No tank needs to clear more tha 2-3 ppm ammonia and the rsulting nitrite in 24 hours.

But, big but, if your tank cannot clear 2-3 ppm ammonia and the resultng nitrite - both - in 24 hours to undetectable levels, it is not cycled for a full bioload. That is the test of a fully clyced tank. Just zero ammonia and nitite does not tell you anything. A defined clearance time/rate is absolutely required IMHO & IME.

[Ms.Bubbles]

Yes, I've over-simplified the process for the sake of brevity here--my main point to wannabefishguru is to KEEP ADDING AN AMMONIA SOURCE or the good bacteria needed to cycle the tank will simply starve & die out.

If you pull out the shrimp, you must replace it with some other source of ammonia!

[wannabefishguru]

gottchya

[wannabefishguru]

just thought i would drop an update, cycle is on its way. ammonia peaked and is now going down, nitrite is showing put i don't know where though my freshwater master test kit from aquarium pharmicuticles nitrite test is showing a dark tan or light brown color which is not a color on the chart, so a question for my fellow aquanots is where is my nitrite reading at?

i have testes twice and the solution is not expired so beats me, is it off the charts or what.

ammonia .25-1.0
nitrite dark tan to light brown
nitrate minimal reading

[Roan Art]

You sure you're not using a nitrate kit by mistake? Seriously, if that's the color of the test result then I would contact AP and ask them if that's a bad batch of test solution. No way should the nitrite result be that color in an AP test kit.

Roan

[Native American]

I will just add that I am so lazy that I simply do the fish cycle...put in 4-5 guppy fry for each 10 gallons of capacity with the tank set up the way you like it, and let them grow. Takes a month, but it works nicely.

Just one of many ways to cycle a tank.

v/r, N-A

[djblac]

I will just add that I am so lazy that I simply do the fish cycle...put in 4-5 guppy fry for each 10 gallons of capacity with the tank set up the way you like it, and let them grow. Takes a month, but it works nicely.

Just one of many ways to cycle a tank.

v/r, N-A


good for you, i think we're over debating that....


This whole thread has really opened my eyes, i just never knew other ways were out there to cycle, great thread!

[wannabefishguru]

thanks, still waiting to hear back from aquarium phamacuticles

[wannabefishguru]

it works, it realy realy works YEPPY, my cycle is down, get down, boogey woogey wooo. hip hip horray. thanks for the help everyone, time to test this baby out.