Fishless cycle advice

[airbrnebkr]

Well I am exactly a week into cycling my tank. My Damsels dont look very happy. My ammonia is at 1.0, Nitrites are it about 3.5, Nitrates 0, salinity is 1.024, temp is 78 and ph is 8.2. I would like to take my Damsels back before it is to late. I would have prefered not to use fish to cycle but that is what I was told to do by my lfs. Now that I have been reading on here I have heard a lot of people talking about fishless cycling. Could someone give me some good methods to do this so I can take my poor fishies back to the store before there are none to take back.
Thanks,
Doug
:sad

 

[OrionGirl]

Remove the damsel before starting any other kind of cycling.

Once that's done, toss in 2-3 raw cocktail shrimp from the deli. Test as always, and once ammonia/nitrites hit 0, do a water change and you're good to add fish.

 

[Dozer]

Fishless cycle! Using shrimp?!?! So once I start up my tank, get the salinty in the water correct, get the pumps runnin', I can throw in some raw shrimp from a local shop for a few weeks and wait for my levels to even out? And then toss in my live sand and live rock?

Sounds good to me, of course if I've hit the nail on the head

Mike

 

[OrionGirl]

Yep. Might take more than a few weeks, but that's it. If you're getting uncured rock, plan on there being a small cycle when the rock goes in, but that's about it.