old white diamond filter media and shrimp

[andruboz]

i've re-newbied myself by going large..

my 125g tank is the first one i'm not setting up with some gravel from another tank. so in order to get the cycle chugging along,
i was going to throw in the used up [marineland] white diamond crystals from the filter media baskets from my 55g tank's emperor and maybe chuck some whole dead shrimp from the seafood section of the local grocery. will this save a few days cycling? i suppose the bacteria on a shrimp isnt necessarily amonia eating bacteria. but decomposition should release all kinds of nutrients for something.

i could take out the other filter cartridges from the 55 and just let them lay in the bottom of the tank. think that would help?

and if amonia is (initially) a good thing, and i have 2 emperors on the tank with new filters with carbon in them removing the amonia, isnt that counter productive?

and yes, i read the skeptical aquariast

on a side note:
grampa groaned when i bought the big tank but since i moved the 29g out of the living room to make room for it, he is already missing the blood parrots.

[OrionGirl]

Determine what the white crystals are first. They may be an ammonia removing product, which will be counter productive. You would be better off just pulling a handful of the gravel from the 29 and putting it in a nylon baggie and putting that in the filter instead. The filters from the 55 will work as well. You can use a dead shrimp, though all it will contribute is ammonia (byproduct of decomposition), not any bacteria. This is the method used most often in SW tanks. You can just as easily add ammonia yourself, following the fishless cycling method referenced on wetmanNY's site, as well as on this site.

Carbon doesn't remove ammonia. You don't need to run carbon unless you are removing tannins, medications, etc. For daily use, it's not needed. A better filter media choice would be bio balls, or sponges. They provide more surface area for bacteria to colonize.