cycling a tank

[clark4feathers]

I am cycling a new tank...Nuvo marine 38 for my Seahorses..Can I run charcol or should I wait. It has been a week and half. water parameters are progressing nicely. ammonia was super high. Seeing a slow decrease with my nitrates and nitrites outrageous funky colors. Doing the fishless cycle with a shrimp. I have had sucsess before with this technigue...water is cloudy.

 

[Mebbid]

I would just wait to run the carbon. Imho there are very few limited uses for it including removing medications, tannins, and coral warfare

 

[dmolavi]

If you're doing a shrimp cycle, I hope you have it in an old stocking to keep shrimp bits from polluting the tank Also, your water is probably cloudy and/or yellow from all the dissolved organics in it from the shrimp. When I did the shrimp cycle, I used Seachem Matrix Carbon and it made the water crystal clear (from a nasty yellow) in about 3 hrs.