Fishless Cycle Question

[rurtecho]

To all fish people out there,

I have a 25 gallon tank, I assumed it was cycled because I had a vieja synspilum cichlid there for about 1.5 years. Anyways, when I gave the fish away to a better home, I took out the gravel washed it, clean my tank (inside and out), rinse my filter parts (sponge,carbon and bio..). Then I filled it up with tap water, use dechlorinator, and turned on both my air stones, I checked the parameters at this point and got this:

pH 7.4
Ammonia .5 ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 5 ppm

Then, after 3 days I put some tetra safestart, and then I put a shrimp on a nylon panties. After two days of putting the safestart and fish I checked the parameters and got this:

pH 7.2
Ammonia .5 ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 20 ppm

My guess is that my tanked was cycled already, or I don't know. Should I keep waiting? or what should I do at this point? Thank you so much,

Rony

 

[minnnt]

Hi there. You ideally want your ammonia at 0 before you start stocking it. Do a couple a 50% water changes over the next few days and see if that improves things.

 

[This Old Spouse]

How did you "wash" everything?

 

[rurtecho]

I rinsed it out, put the gravel on my sink and turn on the water. I used paper to clean the inside of my tank. and my filter I used the sink too. I guess my question is: How long does it take for the shrimp to give noticeable ammonia? (noticeable for my test kit). And also, is it really necessary to do a water change now? wouldn't that slow down the cycle?

 

[a.wagg]

You shouldn't wash bio-media under a tap, cause the chlorine can, and will kill your nitrifying bacteria, making your ammonia spike, killing fish. Lightly rinse your filter media in tank water next time. Also, considering you don't really have a reason to rinse the media, (ie, no sucked up food bits, poo) you probably slowed down the nitrogen cycle.

 

[rurtecho]

No, I rinsed everything BEFORE I started doing the cycle. How long until the shrimp gives out ammonia?

 

[minnnt]

The shrimp give out ammonia as soon as they poo! And I think you will be suprised how much they do.

The water change was not for the benefit of the cycle it was for the benefit of the fish as it is extremely poisonous to fish!

 

[This Old Spouse]

Erm, I don't think the shrimp he was referring to was of this earth any longer.

 

[rurtecho]

Yeah, it's a dead shrimp, from a seafood store, the ones you boil and eat. Am I doing this wrong? Lol.

 

[minnnt]

What? Oh! Haha!

I would use pure ammonia from a bottle to cycle the tank. Have a read in the resource centre pinned topic at the top of this section. Either that or add a hardy fish and do plenty of water changes and monitor the levels of the ammonia and nitrite.

 

[the_lock_man]

If you rinsed the filter under plain tap water, then my guess would also be that you killed most of the bacteria, because that water wasn't dechlorinated. From the way I've read it, immediately after refilling the tank, you were showing 0.5ppm of ammonia - to my mind, the only place that ammonia can have come from was your tap water, because you hadn't put the dead shrimp in there.

The dead shrimp will start to decay within a couple of days - you're not doing it "wrong" as such, it's just that it's harder to control the levels of ammonia in the tank using a dead shrimp. As Minnnt says, it's easier doing it with bottled ammonia, where you can calculate exactly how much ammonia is going in.

I've never cycled using anything other than bottled, but I would say that you need to monitor your ammonia level carefully, and take the shrimp out when ammonia goes over about 5ppm. Keep it available, for when the ammonia is starting to be processed, and you need to top it up.

 

[This Old Spouse]

Do take out the dead shrimp

and use ammonia. As the others have said, it's MUCH easier to control what's happening and if you follow the steps in the beginner's section you'll be cycled in no time.

 

[a.wagg]

Yeah, I'd recommend a true fishless cycle, rather than the dead shrimp one. Go get a test kit, and some ammonia. A cycle with some $.25 goldfish can work too, but be prepared to lose some... and have more guess work as to when you can introduce less hardy fish (ie, the ones you want).

 

[the_lock_man]

A cycle with some $.25 goldfish can work too, but be prepared to lose some...

Hence why the fishless cycle is recommended........

 

[fluttermoth]

Yeah, I'd recommend a true fishless cycle, rather than the dead shrimp one. Go get a test kit, and some ammonia.

I don't like disaggreeing with other posters, but..using a dead shrimp or prawn is a proper fishless cycle; it's not as easy to be accurate with the ammonia levels, for sure, but it works perfectly well; my one and only fishless cycle, some 20 years ago now, was done with fish food; no-one in those far off days had thought of using household ammonia, as far as I know.
With ammonia becoming increasingly hard to source in some places, a lot of people may have to use this method in the future.
As long as the OP tests properly, which they are doing, there'll be no problem

A cycle with some $.25 goldfish can work too, but be prepared to lose some...

Which is precisely why we never recommend fish in cycles here, if there is any alternative

and have more guess work as to when you can introduce less hardy fish (ie, the ones you want).

There's no guesswork involved, really; once you had a week of double zeros (for ammonia and nitrite) your cycle is complete, whether it's fish-in or fishless.

Sorry if I sound like I'm 'getting at you'; I'm really not, I just wanted to point those things out to anyone else reading the thread.