Feeding Bacteria - Fishless Cycle

You mean just a regular cocktail shrimp from the grocery store? Fresh? Frozen? Does it matter?

How long will it take for the shrimp to start decomposing and releasing ammonia?
 
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Probably if its not frozen it will start faster. I imagine it will produce ammonia pretty quickly. I have a friend who had never heard of adding pure ammonia. She always cycled with shrimp.
 
Sounds good. I'm off to do some research on shrimp fishless cycling. Hopefully I can find some information regarding how much ammonia is produced per shrimp.

As long as my bacteria colony doesn't completely die off I'm sure I'll be fine. I don't mind recovering from a stalled cycle next week, I just don't want to start over!!! I'm hoping to start stocking next week sometime.

Thanks everyone for your help. This forum is a great resource for learning all this fish stuff! :)
 
Using a shrimp as a source of ammonia is inexact, but it will definitely do the trick with keeping your bacteria viable over the weekend. It would also be easier to fish out of the tank than flake fish food. One large frozen shrimp should be enough, it will quickly defrost in the warm tank water.
 
Wow, shrimpy cycling sounds expensive. Why not just put some catfood in there? ....or Ramen noodles (5 for $1 ! ). Anything decaying produces ammonia, right?
 
rrkss said:
He doses 3 ppm of ammonia so raising it to 6 ppm will NOT kill the bacteria. I've started my fishless cycle with 8 ppm of ammonia without a problem.
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You recommended doubling but TD mentioned tripling. So lets say somewhere between 6 and 9. My kit goes to 5, so that's off the chart for me. There's a point at which more ammonia becomes counterproductive. I've googled and can't find an exact point, but I've found research saying too much will inhibit growth and eventually kill the bacteria.

If you started at 8ppm your cycle may have taken longer than it needed to. I started my fishless at 3ppm and was done in about three weeks (I think it was 24 days, don't really remember).

If TD is in the last stages of the cycle it means there is a fledgling nitrite-eater colony. The Nitrite eaters are known to be more sensitive to this than the ammonia eaters. There's a reason the protocol calls for dropping from 5ppm to 2-3 ppm when you start to turn up nitrites. There's a reason the nitrite eaters don't show up until the ammonia eaters start keeping the ammonia leavels down. More isn't always better.

The bacteria isn't going to die off that dramatically between Friday and Sunday. They do store energy. So the question is will doubling or tripling the dose hurt more than it helps?

The fishfood option will produce some ammonia in a slow release manner. Makes sense to me, reduces the potential for problems. Personally, I wouldn't worry about leaving it be. Maybe it costs you an extra day. What's the downside for an overdose?

YMMV.
 
I cycled my tank in about a month (after unsuccessfully starting a fishy cycle which went sour in the first week) by using two things:

First, I left the last corpse of the dead fish in the tank to rot. This lasted about a week and a half. After this, every couple days I'd add about 3-4 "servings" (3-4 times more then I'd expect to feed a stocked tank daily) of some sinking tropical fish food. The tank finished the cycle the end of last week, and I added my new fish last night. Going to feed them for the first time when I get home from work.
 
gagaliya said:
worst idea ever :/
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Why? What's the difference between leaving the corpse of a fish that died from a cycle and throwing dead shrimp in there?

I could see a problem with a parasite laiden fish -- ie one that died from ich or velvet or something -- but if it dies from the ammonia and/or nitrites spikes, why waste a good rot?

Roan
 
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