question regarding cycling

[Sundiego]

I just started to cycle my quarantine tank with a raw shrimp. The tank smells like crap. I'm wondering if this is normal?

I would think that a rotting shrimp in a tank would not smell good, but this is just putrid.

The shrimp has been in there for only 1 day. The tank has an hob filter that has biomedia in it, the tank has sand and some lava rocks in it.

Ammonia is:
.07 mg/l free ammonia
1.0 mg/l total ammonia (I think..... the test does not match the color exactly)

It is hard to tell on the total ammonia test, the color of my test is a light purple, and the closest color on the color scale to this is a blue?

The test kit is from Seachem.

I also noticed after adding the shrimp that in the filter box there are a bunch a little white dots, some in clusters...they look like yeast. Anyone know what this is?

Should I remove the shrimp?

Mark

BTW-The quarantine tank is a 29 gallon, and I put in about 3/4 of a raw shrimp. The tank has been running for 2 weeks before I added the shrimp.

 

[Sundiego]

Anyone out there? There does not seem to be much traffic on this site.

Mark

 

[greenfish]

I'm not a salty but I cycle my freshwater tanks using pure ammonia and it did not smell at all. I am not sure if you can do this with saltwater but I think you can.

 

[roka64]

I wouldn't remove the shrimp unless your ammonia gets above 5ppm. I never had the problem with the smell, but others have.

 

[Phyl]

The smell is normal, albeit disgusting. How many/what size fish are you putting in there? That might determine how much of that smell you need to put up with. Small bioload and the tank may already have enough bacteria to handle it.

The ideal QT tank wouldn't have any rock in there at all as any treatments you may need to do while watching the fish in QT would adversely affect the rock (and sometimes for good). A few PVC elbows would be a better hideout for your new fish.

That and good water changes should be all you'd need for your QT environment.

For the record, you can start the cycle by adding pure ammonia to the tank in saltwater as well.

 

[Sundiego]

How does PPM translate into mg/l? mg/l is the only scale my kit has. I'm not really worried about the rock, its was really cheap, should I be concerned?

Thx Mark

BTW- I will only have 1 fish first, then down the road may quarantine 3 small fish.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

When I cycled my 10g QT with a shrimp, it was pretty disgusting. Nothing a Glade StickUp couldn't handle though.

ppm and mg/l are the same quantity, just different terms.

Regarding the rock and substrate... just be aware that if you have to medicate the tank, you will probably need to remove it depending on medication. Specifically, copper based medications will get soaked up by calcium bearing substrate and not stay in solution properly. It's OK to have in there, as long as it's not your source for biological filtration. (But if I remember correctly, you've got a biowheel for that.) If it's your only source of biological filtration, then when you take it out, you'll have ammonia issues.

 

[Sundiego]

Thanks Kurt.

I do have a bio filter in the tank. I will remove the rocks if I need to medicate. My ammonia is pretty low right now, I'm sure that will change in a few days.

Mark

 

[MyMonkey]

The smell is normal. Will get that way before it starts to improve. The smell is bad but nothing compared to a rotting anemone. Geez... Sounds like a great start.