i was wondering if this idea would work. i recently crashed my tank on accident doing several careless things but anyways. im doing a whole new cycle to restart but im scared my shrimp are way too stressed atm given that i have no other tank for them. anyways i was wondering if i could just start off dosing the tank with 1 ppm of ammonia instead of going all the way up to 5. is 5 ppm totally necessary? i was thinking i could just do the small ppm and then work it up to establish things. what do you guys think?
You can't add ammonia to your tank with shrimp and they cannot remain in your tank during any sort of nitrogen "cycling." Remove them immediately to a bucket with an air stone or sponge filter.
Since you're new to the forum, I recommend you search around for information about both the fishless cycle and shrimp care.
Here is what I would do:
Keep the shrimp in the tank, add plants, and do enough water changes to keep the ammonia barely reading at all. As close to 0 ppm as possible.
In a separate container do the fishless cycle.
For example, in a 5 gallon bucket, put whatever filter media will fit in your filter, and a small fountain pump or a bubbler or anything that will keep the water moving really well. I would keep the media in the current filter running on the tank, hoping for any sort of recovery that will help the tank. If the media in the current filter has any bacteria at all the shrimp will need it.
Follow the fishless cycle in that container, not the tank.
Start with 5 ppm ammonia until the nitrite shows up, then allow it to drop to 3 ppm until the cycle is done.
For the tank, go get a bottle that contains Nitrospira species of bacteria. This is the exact species that you need to repopulate the tank. Use it according to the label directions for the tank, and if you have some left over you can jump start the fishless cycle that is going on in the bucket. That way you are hopefully growing the bacteria in 2 ways, in 2 places. If there is a 'crop failure' in the tank, you have the back up of more bacteria growing in the bucket.
i know to take the shrimp out. thanks. i have them in a separate containter but moving them and redoing their water seems to stress them out a lot. but thanks @diana. i just found out my dad had an old 10 gallon tank stocked with a air pump and light so i think i might try and use that one to get a cycle going and just do water changes on my current tank i have set up.
Good to hear you moved the shrimp from the tank. Unlike most fish, dwarf shrimp can't tolerate ammonia. Though they're stressed from the move, they'll probably be okay now that you've moved them.
yea so the shrimp are in a 5 gal (their original tank) with an aquaclear and some plants and a heater. ill just do water changes on that one. right now my 10 gallon is cycling but i just did a water test oto find i had nitrites over 5 ppm. but i also have very high levels of ammonia. should i do a water change on this tank? also i was thinking of buying an extra bag of biomax and dump it in the 10 gal as its cycling and then swap it for the one on my 5 to get that one cycled and then move the shrimp to the 10 onces its done cycling.
so this is what my tank's parameters are currently. as you can see i have high ammonia and a little bit of nitrite. but i also have nitrate. so should i do a water change. i dont really know what to do. does this mean its cycled?
It isn't cycled until the ammonia and nitrite are both at zero. The nitrite part of the cycle is the longest. I am starting up a new 10 gallon for my senior betta and even though I filled the new canister filter with a ton of media from my 50 I'm still having to go through the nitrite phase. It could take a week or more depending on how much bacteria you started with. Hang in there!
thanks for the reply. i think the nitrates are coming from the root tabs i put in there. but i took it out to make things less confusing. now my tank is just substrate and a big rock. but the nitrate appeared sooner than i expected so im pretty excited to get it ready. cycling a tank is fun imo to see the parameters change everyday. its just the waiting that kills me.
One option on the fishless cycle is to buy an already active sponge filter from Angles Plus, at least 4 weeks running in one of their disease and pathogen free tanks. It's like $8 and all you do is put a(supplied) lift tube in the filter with your airline and air pump, pour the leftover water from the shipping bag in the tank and your good to go. It would be good to obtain the knowledge to cycle yourself, but I get lazy sometimes and this was right up my alley. Snuffy317
The N-cycle bacteria do not do so well when the ammonia or nitrite are over 5 ppm. Do a water change, enough to drop the NO2 well below 5 ppm, and then dose BARELY enough ammonia to reach 3 ppm, maybe a bit less. Too much ammonia can lead to too high nitrite.
so i tested the water today. the ammonia was at 0 or .5 but the nitrites were really high still. is it completely necessary to dose more ammonia? just wondering.
The N-cycle bacteria do not do so well when the ammonia or nitrite are over 5 ppm. Do a water change, enough to drop the NO2 well below 5 ppm, and then dose BARELY enough ammonia to reach 3 ppm, maybe a bit less. Too much ammonia can lead to too high nitrite.
ok so i did what you said. im literally so confused. i did 2 water changes of about 90%. the first time was because i tried to get the nitrites down. they tested really high. then i decided to do a second one. again the test was super high. im not sure i know whats going on. could the test solution be faulty?
It is possible, but you can test a different way and see what is really going on, if you want. Otherwise just keep on doing water changes until the NO2 is well under 5 ppm.
In one of the tanks I was cycling I saw the same thing: The NO2 kept on reading really high (off the test chart high). It took several BIG water changes just to get it into the range of the test kit. Then the nitrifying bacteria would turn more ammonia into nitrite almost overnight, but the nitrite removing bacteria had not caught up yet, so the NO2 skyrocketed again.
If you want to know an actual number for how high the NO2 is, try any of the following:
test 1ml of tank water + 4 ml of RO or distilled. Multiply the results by 5.
test .5ml of tank water + 4.5ml of RO or distilled. Multiply the results by 10.
mix (in a separate, very clean container) 1 ml of tank water + 19ml of RO or distilled water. Fill the test tube with 5 ml of this blend, then test and multiply the result by 20.
If even one of these brings the NO2 into the range of the test you will at least have a ballpark idea as to how high the NO2 is getting. But I never bothered with that sort of thing. I just knew I needed to do water changes, so I did.
I sometimes wonder if the NO2 clings to the substrate just a bit. Then, doing a 90% water change is indeed getting rid of all the water above the substrate, but the minute it is refilled the substrate cuts loose of the NO2 it was holding, so the water again tests way high for NO2. I do not know if this is true, but the last time I did such a big water change I did more. I drained the water as close to the bottom of the tank as I could, digging a hole in the substrate to do so. Then I partially refilled the tank and drained that, again, through the substrate. When I refilled the tank after that the NO2 took overnight to start rising. I had added only about 1 ppm ammonia the day before.
Getting rid of the high NO2 seemed to do the trick, the bacteria kicked in and the tank was cycled a few days later. I was able to add 3 ppm ammonia and have zero ammonia and nitrite within 24 hours.
so i did about two water changes with a gravel vac. one about 80% and one 50% and got the nitrites down to .25 ppm. filled it back up and added .5 ml of ammonia. ill test it tonight for nitrites and ammonia just in case.
That sounds good. If you can keep on adding just a little ammonia daily for several days so the first population of bacteria have something to eat while the others catch up that is good. Then you can dose a little more and a little more until you are dosing to 3 ppm again.
When the bacteria can remove all that and the nitrite also reads zero after 24 hours, the cycle is done.
urrr i made a huge mistake. the result of stirring up my substrate resulted in the discovery of TONS of worms idk what kind but they were pretty big for the amount of time they've been in there and given that they've had literally nothing to eat. anyways i dosed it with hydrogen peroxide which i think killed off the Beneficial bacteria. so back to square one -_-. i did a reading and my ammonia was at 2 ppm. so im crossing my fingers that there was still enough bacteria left to reestablish a colony. i put a heater and a air pump in it. so if im lucky enough, tomorrow ill have no ammonia and i wont have to start everything over. if so i might just try to fine smart start which i heard was a good cycling product and got good reviews from tank magazines
For cycling, you just add some food flakes. If you have a sponge from an already functionning filter, you can squeeze it over the filter of the new tank to provide bacteria. You can add a little substrate from another cycled tank.
Adding plants will provide bacterias as well.
Very often I did let my tanks functionning with the filter 4-5 weeks without adding anything and the cycle did start. There are bacterias everywhere, on our hands, decorations, roots, plants, etc.
Never use fauna to cycle a tank, this is just dangerous, period.
If you want to add more bacteria look for any product with Nitrospira species of bacteria. This can be found in:
Tetra Safe Start
Microbe Lift's Nite Out II
Dr. Tim's One and Only
...and perhaps others. Read the label. If it does not include Nitrospira do not waste your money.
Did you leave the dead worms in the substrate? As they decompose they will add ammonia to the water. This may feed the cycle for a little while. Keep on monitoring things.
i went with nite out 2. and within the day i noticed results. pretty good stuff. i tried tetra safe start. but i messed up the process i did the water change but it says to wait 24 after dechlor. so that was botched. anyways nite out started killing the nitrites right away. ammonia is slightly lower but now low enough. but i guess in time it'll get there
Even adding the right species of bacteria will take a little time. They need to get established in the filter media and other surfaces, and start reproducing.
Normally you would see minor blips of ammonia and nitrite for a few days, then the tank is cycled.
If you are ready to add livestock, go for it.
If you are not ready, keep feeding the bacteria will ammonia, just like you are doing the fishless cycle.
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