Shrimp cycling

[PK Tester]

Has anyone ever used a shrimp to cycle a freshwater tank? I have plans of getting a possible 55G in the near future. I was wondering how many cocktaiel shrimp would I throw in there...how long...etc. I tried to run a search but you have no idea how many topics pull up on cycling . Thanks so much

 

[astroguy]

Invertebrae are particularly sensitive to nitrogen products. So I would doubt severely that a shrimp can survive the ammonia and the nitrite peak. Please consider the fishless cycle.

 

[QTOFFER]

LOL, I think he means throwing some raw (dead) shrimp in the tank. It is a fishless cycle will the rotting shrimp as the ammonia source.

My only question would be how do you control the rate of decomposition, and hence the dose of ammonia. Adding ammonia from a bottle is as controlled as you can get, IMO.

 

[astroguy]

Ah, my apologies then! Never heard of this one

 

[PK Tester]

QTOFFER my ownly issue with that is...it seems like a lot of work and daily testing...I'm so busy that I doubt I could do that every single day lol. If you check the saltwater forums theres tons of people talking about this...I'll have to do some research on the web I guess

 

[Overstocker]

Throw in one good big one. If nothing else in the tank I wouldn't think it would matter how high the ammonia got..... The good bacteria would develope soon enough.
I used BIO-Spira on a 29 gal and a 20 gal and it worked great! 1 day cycle on the 20 and 2 days on the 29 gal.

 

[Sati]

Yeah, I'm with Overstock. I am not 100% but I think you just let it rot and let the tank really hit an ammonia spike. Eventually the the parameters will work themselves out.

Check out this article: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/showquestion.php?faq=2&fldAuto=15

And here's another: http://www.aquamaniacs.net/cyclingsafelyfishless.html

 

[PK Tester]

Sati, thank you so much!

 

[PK Tester]

Sati, thank you so much!

 

[Sati]

I'm glad I could help, PK