How Long to keep Dead Shrimp in for Cycle?

derwood

Member
Cycling a new 10 Gallon QT tank with a piece of shrimp. How long do I need to leave it in there to allow for full cycling affect?
Its been in there 2 days and is starting to smell pretty ripe....
 

col

Active Member
You can leave it in untill you get a decent ammonia reading.
Some just leave it there in the tank full time.
 

jugger

Member
iv never heard of this dead shrimp thing before... is this a must do thing??? how does this help the cycle???i just put my live rock into my tank today...
 

lfd-143

Member
jugger
You can cycle the tank with just live rock. If you put in a shrimp or two the cycle might go a little quicker. How much live rock do you have?Do you have a DSB? Live sand and what size tank?
Frank
 
T

thomas712

Guest
Jugger - Many feel that using a piece of raw shrimp will do just as well to start the cycle, as using live animals. Many feel that it is just more humane that way. It serves to prevent any fish from being stressed out and getting ick or other illnesses while cycling the tank. The shrimp starts the cycle by breaking down into ammonia. I personally started my 90 this way and didn't add anything live for nearly 2 months. I used a very large prawn, which worked great, but I should have placed it in a micron bag or nylon because once it breaks apart it is a pain to clean.
Thomas
 

jlem

Active Member
You can throw in a small bag of carbon to combat the smell and it won't slow down your cycle.
Putting in cured live rock will basically give you an instantly cycled tank. Granted you may have a very small ammonia spike from some minor die off. But that will drop quickly because the rock will be saturated with beneficial bacteria already. You will of course want to test the tank before adding in livestock and add very slowly to let the rock catch up to the increasing bioload. Uncured rock will produce a huge ammonia spike that will cycle the tank just as well as shrimp. By adding shrimp to a tank with live rock you are just extending the cycle since the rock is cycled already from being in the holding tank or ocean. Now if you plan to dump a bunch of fish, corals, and other live stock as soon as your tank is done cycling then you could use the shrimp to supersaturate your rock with beneficial bacteria, but then you run into all kinds of different problems.
 
I left mr shrimpy in there. I though about takin him out, but when i moved him he just kinda busted all over the place. Then he was just gone. It made my tank cycle very good. IMO i would rather use a shrimp instead of a live fish. Ya, the damsel might make it, but he would be REAL unhappy for that month.
just my 2 cents
 

jugger

Member
Wow you guys that was all very good information…thank you…but now I have to many options and don’t know where to start….
I have a small 20 gallon that was running with just equipment and saltwater for a week..on the 30th I had 45 lbs of live rock (cured) 2nd day shipped….during lunch I took it straight home and put it into the tank… it smelt very nice just like clean ocean no bad smell at all…btw it was very nice looking lots of coralline growth and some interesting animals still alive but I don’t know what they are exactly…. And I only paid $99 for 45 lbs…didn’t expect such nice rock…. Anyway I also bought 30 lbs of argonite sand but haven’t added it yet…I was waiting until after the cycle….not sure if this is the right sequence…. Its been 24 hours since I added the rock and I haven’t had a chance to test the water yet….
I guess my question is should I add the sand now??? Or after the cycle???
If all the levels are fine today after I check would it be safe to say that there was little die off and the tank doesn’t need to cycle…or should I put in dead shrimp to make a cycle happen???
 

lfd-143

Member
I would put the sand in now. There still might be a little die off from the rock. So you may not get a full cycle,but you may have a mini cycle even though the rock was cured.
 

derwood

Member
Thanks all for the feedback. Have a nice NH3 spike and the NO2 is strong as well. The shrimp process has worked great. Highly recommend it.
 

justchillin

Member
i left mine and let them decompose in the tank...the reason being that i figured not only would the initial ammonia spike start the cycle but the continued decomposition would continue to feed the expanding bacterial life. that way when i started adding fish it wouldn't be to much for my bio-filtration....anyways i could have been way off, and it may not have mattered either way, but i got no spikes after adding my first fish..
hth,
mike
 

david s

Member
hmm just a thought here guys as far as cycled rock no cycle I think a good high amonia count then high nitrite count in the long run will help your sand bed bacteria. so maybe tryng to setup a quick cycle tank may take longer to actually be stable.
any input here would be great lets dicuss this hehe ( no flameing lol):p
 

infalable

Member
Hi Derwood. You seem to be happy w/ your lr. I will be purchasing and lfs is more espensive. Did you buy here or from someone else?. Thanks. Just looking for quality stuff.
 
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