Just making sure...

Just making sure that I'm doing this properly. Some guy at a fish store said we'd need to put in some dead shrimp or a live fish like a chromis or a damsel (then take him out after it cycles) or else our levels wouldn't spike since they haven't yet. I would never do that to a live animal, just repeating what was said.

It's been exactly a week today that we started our 14g BioCube. Our levels have been the same since we started

pH- 7.8
Ammonia- 0
Nitrate- 0
Nitrite-0

Nothing's changed at all, I know it can take awhile to cycle but is it normal to see no change at all in a week? Is there something I should be doing differently?

 

What type of shrimp did you put in the tank? You need to make sure what you put in wasnt cooked. Just give it some time I know how hard it can be to wait. Good Luck with your tank!

 

you do need to put something in to rot and thus generate bacteria

14 gallons , I agree with you, I am a big fan of asking Yellow Tail Blue Damsels help me get my tank ready , and I leave them in when tank is ready ( I dont make them redundant if they do a good job for me) - but a 14 gallon tank would make me hesitate to to this to be honest

so yes for a 14 gallon I do like the sound of the decaying shrimp or prawn method
drop a piece in, measure your levels, amonia should increase, followed by Nitrite and then both drop back to zero

Steve

 

Thanks! So could I use a piece of frozen shrimp out of my freezer? lol

Do I just drop the whole thing in there and leave it? Or do I put a small piece? Do I have to take it out after a day or so?

 

When I set up my tank I just dropped an uncooked one from my freezer in there. I left it in there until it just rotted away. It does smell a little but I didnt want to put a fish in my tank during the cycle.

 

I didn't realize the fish would live through the cycle, I thought it would get the cycle going and then die I guess if it lived it wouldn't be a bad thing.

I'll go ahead and put the shrimp in tonight. I'm not ready for anything live yet!

 

a YTB is never a bad thing IMO - I really like these fish

but if you dont want one then I would use the shrimp method

Steve

 

Yea, fish food! Also, your LFS might have a bottle of bacteria that they use for their personal tanks. Petco gave my a couple drops of it. Or you can buy a bacteria conditioner like Cycle.

 

The shrimp is in! After arguing for like 10 minutes whether it was raw or not I just gave in lol Red RAW shrimp?????

 

Enjoy your pet shrimp!