piece of chicken breast instead of cocktail shrimp to cycle?

[raja]

Hi, My ammonia levels are quite low but my nitrite levels are very high. I used a nutrafin 'cycle' product to help with the nitrite levels but after 4 days nothing has really changed. I was thinking of using a piece of chicken breast to help cycle the tank (It's a 35g). Would this be of any help? What else could I do, I am hoping to add liverock sometime next week from lr.com but want my tank levelst to be somewhat stable (ph is fine, salinity is ~1.023, temp is ~25C +- 1 deg).

I have been runing the tank with just water for about 7 weeks, I have 10 lbs of argonite sand over a bag of caribsea cc substrate. My filter is a emperor 280 filter (has a carbon filter media and a (clean) biowheel, also has a container for another filter media that can be filled up)

Is my only solution time?

For lighting i just have a 18" eclipe 'daylight' plain white floro and 2 blue cold cathode tubes (for moonlighting, works great!)

thanks,
raja

 

[RogerMcAllen]

Well the chicken should decay like a shirmp and create ammonia, so I don't really see why not. I'm not sure how well a piece of chicken would stay together though, I believe, but am not sure, that part of the benefit to a shrimp is that the shell helps keep some of the rotting tissue together in one place instead of floating around.

 

[rubysoho]

stick it in some panty hose and it will all stick together

 

[raja]

do i really need to add this shrimp andor chicken if the cycle process has already begun? my nitrites are very high, anything else i can do to help aid this? anyone care to speculate what caused the cycle to begin if i never added any initial ammonia/shrimp/bacteria?

cheers,

raja

 

[blorkiemom]

Oh, you didn't use anything to start the cycle? I just read something the other day about how just junk in the air can eventually cause a small cyle--sorry I don't have a link! But--IME the nitrites are the long part of the process. The ammonia might only last a few days but it can take a week or longer to start to go down. (That's mostly FW experience BTW, and one SW tank.)

 

[fishfreek]

If your gonna be adding live rock from LR.com next week you really wont need to add the chicken or shrimp as the live rock will help complete the cycle.

 

[indy]

I prefer to use the whole chicken rather than pieces. A whole live chicken that is. You don't even need powerheads, their thrashing around does a pretty good job of moving water.

But seriously, patience dude, patience.