Cycling With Cooked Shrimp

[isildursbane]

Okay, so I remembered reading many years ago about cycling a tank by throwing a shrimp in there and letting it go for a month or so, doing a 95 - 100% water change, and then being ready to consider livestock. I have decided to go this route and not do any water testing (I don't have test kits yet). My main question is that I assume you would add a fresh uncooked shrimp to the tank, but all I have is frozen cooked shrimp. Will this still convert to ammonia properly to cycle the tank? This is a 29 BC tank, stock. I plan to plumb in a sump also, have not researched that yet.

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l590/Pcbskyhooks/Aquarium/29BCCycling210-15.jpg

Any other ideas on a cheap / basic cycling method would be appreciated. It would help to know that I plan to buy some good liverock and sand on top of the dead rock/sand I already have at the end of the cycle. No ideas on livestock either, i'm not in any hurry.

:bounce3:

[zvonmonet]

http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/bionitrogencycle/f/faqbiozyme.htm

read this it will explain everything for you and your options

this site - http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/bionitrogencycle/The_Tank_Cycling_Process_and_Ways_to_Cycle_an_Aquarium.htm

lists all common questions about the cycling process

[Jstdv8]

walmart frozen food section or any grocery store witha fesh seafood section will likley give you a single fresh shrimp to put in there. you don't want to use cooked due to the oils they use in cooking.
I don't see the purpose of doing any large water changes like you mentioned. the idea is to let the ammonia build up and convert to trites and then to trates. once they are converted to trates They should be find thier way out of the system. But before then you want all the ammonia you can get. The higher the ammonia i suppose the longer the cycle, but the better the cycle will be when its done.

[xbehmerx]

always thought the shrimp had to be raw.

[reefer4ever]

This was and still is a stupid idea.

[Jeff]

This was and still is a stupid idea.
And so was your post lol. Not helpful at all.

Adding shrimp is an old school method that does work but is not too efficient anymore. The way I cycle a tank is to use good quality live rock and base rock and some good quality live sand and some dry sand. I also use Microbactor7. It takes me around a week or two to cycle a tank this way. It all depends on how much die off I have with the live rock. When doing a 1-2 week cycle I am very careful to test often and add animals very slowly in order of heartiness.

[Peter T]

And so was your post lol. Not helpful at all.

Adding shrimp is an old school method that does work but is not too efficient anymore. The way I cycle a tank is to use good quality live rock and base rock and some good quality live sand and some dry sand. I also use Microbactor7. It takes me around a week or two to cycle a tank this way. It all depends on how much die off I have with the live rock. When doing a 1-2 week cycle I am very careful to test often and add animals very slowly in order of heartiness.

I agree 100%. My last two tanks I cycled with LR and it took quite a bit less time than my first tank. But way back then it could be argued I never even cycled the tank properly as I kept having crashes and the only survivors were always damsels (was ignorant and had no internet to learn). I guess the LFS liked it that way.

Love your sig by the way. Reminds of other things... :lmao:

[davocean]

I've set up alot of tanks for friends, fastest cycle from my exp is dry sand(not live, too much die off) good established LR, and a scoop of sand from an established tank.
I usually add a pinch of flake fish food, and that's it.

[Jeff]

To be clear, when I said live sand I meant live sand from another tank.

[isildursbane]

Thanks for all of the posts guys/gals. I forgot to mention that I did get a good cup or so of Live sand from the buddy that gave me all of the dead rock/sand that I started the tank with. I know everyone does it differently (that's true for everything right). Mainly I am doing this on a budget, since my last reef was a 90 that was not budget friendly. I plan to cherry pick nice pieces of live rock on craigslist and maybe a bit from the hour-away LFS.

Speaking of the LFS, I saw that Jeff mentioned Microbactor7. I will do some research and maybe pick up some product like that this weekend. I did not think about the oils that might be in cooked shrimp, but you never know these days what they are putting in food. Oh, the reason I was going to do a 95% water change (at the end of the cycle) was that I used well water when I set the tank up. I live out in the middle of nowhere and hauling 30 gallons of water was not in the plans that day . . .

Final question, the sand I have seems fairly coarse and I was thinking of getting some fine sand. I know southdown used to be the go-to product, but can you even get that anymore? A friend recommended Oolite sand to add to the coarse that I have, any recommendations? Also, I have some LR rubble in Chamber 2 of the BC, so I guess you could say that is a fuge for now, do I put 4 inches of sand in Chamber 2 and then put the LR rubble on top of that?

[Jeff]

This is the sand that I always use: http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2753226
It's the perfect size, not too small, not too coarse. It won't blow around.