Adding shrimp cycling question

[csoutherland]

I just put in 2 pieces of raw shrimp in my tank today. Started my 75 gallon reef about a week ago. How long should I wait to add bacteria? And how long and effective should this be?

 

[DIZZLE808]

All you have to do now is let the shrimp rot. That'll give you your ammonia source and your tank will start its cycle. Keep testing your water params and you'll see a spike in ammonia then nitrites. Once the ammonia and nitrites go back to zero you should have a high reading in nitrates. After that you should do a large water change and be good to go. As far as adding bacteria idk. Maybe someone else can chime in on that one

 

[melosu58]

We have a good article about this in our sw articles section.

 

[dmolavi]

I added a single jumbo shrimp and it lasted for several weeks. Put it in an old stocking or pantyhose to keep it from polluting the water when it decays, though.

Also, run some good carbon in the tank (I used Seachem's Matrix Carbon) to keep the water clear (vs yellow-ish) and it keeps the stink down, too.

You'll start to see your ammonia levels rise, then nitrites. Once nitrites start going up, the ammonia should drop to zero, and the nitrates will start to rise. Eventually, after several weeks, the nitrites will zero out and your nitrates will be the only thing left in the tank.

If the shrimp has totally decayed, add pure ammonia (that you can buy from a hardware store, but nothing with detergents/surfactents) to dose ammonia to 4ppm daily until you're ready to get the rest of the tank set up.

 

[dmolavi]

Also, I used some IO seeder bacteria, because my live rock was dry, and I needed to get something in there to start up the colony.