cycling with shimp

[bosslady]

I have been cycling with shrimp in my tank for a week. Do I leave the shrimp in the tank the whole cycling?

Ph 8.8
ammonia 1
nitrite 5
mitrate 80

I have about 40 lbs of lr and 20 lbs base rock
I have 15 lbs Ls on top of a 4" sand base

Does this all sound like I am on my way to a good start?

Jeanett

 

[two11devan]

I believe you can take the shrimp out of the tank when you see a nice spike in the ammonia. I cycled my tank with just the LR and LS and it took about three weeks i think. I think everything else is looking good too.

 

[astride13]

I am assuming that your Nitrates were at 0 when you started. If you already have 80ppm of Nitrates. then your tank is nearing the end of the cycle. I would pull out the shrimp and keep checking daily until your ammonia and nitrites are 0. Thats when the fun starts.

Is your ph really 8.8 or is that a typo?

 

[bosslady]

My PH is 8.2. everything did start a 0. I would like to get more LR . I ran a little short on funds.


PS
I added pictures to my gallery.

Jeanett

 

[BillyZ]

be careful about adding additional LR now that your system is already cycled. Adding more LR can kick off another cycle. So you obviously don't want to do that if you have fish in your tank at the time. If you buy cured LR from a LFS, you should be ok. Any LR purchased on-line and shipped will have to be cured in a seperate tank. Check out the articles section for info on curing LR.

 

[LiewPhilip]

From the view of your setup tank at the Gallery, with those LR, you really need more funds to fill it. If you intend to put livestock after it has cycled, additional LR might spike and kill most of them. Please consider of curing additional LR in another tank. HTH.