speckrb
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Hello all. I am starting up a 15 or 16 gallon long tank. I dropped a shrimp in to do a fishless cycle and it really took off rotting at 80° within 36 hours. The stink filled the house. I had a heck of a time convincing my wife that this is a good thing and don't think I succeeded. It got better over a couple days but couldn't handle the abuse by the family over another house science experiment gone wrong. I bought a bag of live sand and dumped it in and within 24 hours the stink was almost completely gone. 48 hours later it completely gone. The question I have now is with the ammonia being over 1.25 in the tank on the test kit chart did that kill any little animals that may have hitchhiked on the sand? It was 5 months old and obviously fresh enough to cut the ammonia and stink in half overnight but what died off. My goal is to have a small FOWLR tank with a pair of nemo's for the kids (and me) and a small CUC. Nothing extravegant yet. Currently I have a AC300 and a large sponge filter going to help stabilize the tank faster. After it stabilizes and I add 15-20 lbs LR I will take out the filters and let it stabilize for a couple weeks. Then get a AQUA C Nano Remora skimmer. I know I don't need it but am hoping to get away with light feedings and water changes every 2 weeks instead of every week. I'm really just curious if any little stars, featherdusters, bristle worms or other critters would survive in a plastic bag on a shelf for 5 months and then thrown into an ammonia tank. I also know people have opinions on live sand but I had to try something and it worked way better than I thought it would overnight. Thoughts on the survival rate?