1 week, 2 raw shrimp, no ammonia, diatoms. What's it mean?

cordell · 01/22/2012, 07:33 PM

I guess this is another of the usual "what's this mean?" questions...

I've only had my tank going for about 10 days now. I started with 90lb of dry rock, 30lb dry sand, 30lb caribsea live? sand(bc it was on sale). On the first day I started dropping in a good amount of pellet food each day.

About 3 days later, I added about 35lb of very good live rock.

The next day I added 2 raw shrimp inside pantyhose.

I've been testing daily using Salifert test kits, and still have not seen any ammonia, nitrites or nitrates. I've been wondering if the cycle had even started because of the absence of anything on the tests...

Yesterday, I started getting a light brown algae on the rocks and sand and throughout the day today it grew quickly so that it's very noticeable. From what I can tell, this is a diatom bloom and is normal. But I expected that sometime later during the cycle.

Could the amount of live rock that I used be taking care of the ammonia coming off of the raw shrimp? But if that was the case, wouldn't I be seeing some nitrates?

I've had the lights going for about 10hrs a day, but I'm going to turn them off for a while now since I've been reading it is unnecessary. The skimmer has been on too and has been almost filled to the top twice this week, but it's a lighter colored stuff, not the real dark stuff like usual.

Should I leave the shrimp in? Does the diatom bloom mean the cycle must be started and well on its way in the right direction?

No hurry here.. just trying to get an idea of what's going on.

Diatoms?

The shrimp, starting to look nasty on the outside

zigzag1 · 01/22/2012, 07:40 PM

I would keep waiting it out. Check again in two or three days, and monitor twice a week. Patience is the key to this hobby. JMTC & GL!

cordell · 01/22/2012, 07:43 PM

Sorry about the big size of the pics... resized them as usual in Photobucket, for some reason they are staying the original size??

Maybe it's just my computer..

cordell · 01/22/2012, 08:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zigzag1

I would keep waiting it out. Check again in two or three days, and monitor twice a week. Patience is the key to this hobby. JMTC & GL!

Oh yeah, will be waiting it out for sure. I guess I was expecting the normal rise of ammonia, then nitrites, then nitrates, but haven't seen any of it yet. Maybe in the next few days something will pop up...

Exxotic · 01/22/2012, 08:07 PM

You should not worry about it. 10 days into a cycle and you clearly are not seeing signs yet. Give it some time, every tank is different. I know there is a lot of debate obviously on the whole shrimp thing... but you seeded the tank with live rock, the shrimps been in there and your feeding pellets... I say you toss the shrimp because your just going to put bad nutrients into the tank now.... Just my opiniong. Good luck

cordell · 01/22/2012, 10:36 PM

Yeah I was wondering about that shrimp... some say it's not a good idea, some say do it. Seems like it is that way about almost everything in this stuff! I'll probably pull them out in the morning or the next day and run some tests to see where things are.

Jocko · 01/23/2012, 08:06 AM

Well to understand the shrimp thing, you just need to remember, like any population of creatures, a primary limiting factor for the size of your bacteria population will be availability of food.

So if you put the shrimp in there, ultimately it's going to start putting out quite a bit of ammonia, which is going to create a large food supply. So of course your bacteria population is going to shoot up. Now the problem is, however, when you remove the shrimp, the food supply suddenly drops. And thus the bacteria population crashes. And therein lies the problem. The only way to prevent the crash would be to put a whole bunch of fish in the tank so that there was a high enough bioload to support the population. But nobody is going to tell you to do that. So why the shrimp? It's a contradiction, but it's also tradition, so it remains popular.

If you skip the shrimp, then you just start with a small population of bacteria. If you're adding fish slowly anyhow, then basically every time a new fish goes in, the food supply increases slightly, and the bacteria population grows slightly. It actually achieves balance sooner because you don't end up with the artificial population problems from the shrimp.

fishgate · 01/23/2012, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jocko

Well to understand the shrimp thing, you just need to remember, like any population of creatures, a primary limiting factor for the size of your bacteria population will be availability of food.

So if you put the shrimp in there, ultimately it's going to start putting out quite a bit of ammonia, which is going to create a large food supply. So of course your bacteria population is going to shoot up. Now the problem is, however, when you remove the shrimp, the food supply suddenly drops. And thus the bacteria population crashes. And therein lies the problem. The only way to prevent the crash would be to put a whole bunch of fish in the tank so that there was a high enough bioload to support the population. But nobody is going to tell you to do that. So why the shrimp? It's a contradiction, but it's also tradition, so it remains popular.

If you skip the shrimp, then you just start with a small population of bacteria. If you're adding fish slowly anyhow, then basically every time a new fish goes in, the food supply increases slightly, and the bacteria population grows slightly. It actually achieves balance sooner because you don't end up with the artificial population problems from the shrimp.

I had this exact concern when I was cycling my tank. "What happens to the bacteria once the ammonia is gone?" The answer is you either add fish or ghost feed the tank. I chose to ghost feed to keep the bacteria population up. And once you have an established population of BB, they are able to grow and contract in small amounts to keep your tank balanced. This is why adding 1 or 2 fish at a time is not a big deal, but adding lots of fish is.

dzfish17 · 01/23/2012, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jocko

Well to understand the shrimp thing, you just need to remember, like any population of creatures, a primary limiting factor for the size of your bacteria population will be availability of food.

So if you put the shrimp in there, ultimately it's going to start putting out quite a bit of ammonia, which is going to create a large food supply. So of course your bacteria population is going to shoot up. Now the problem is, however, when you remove the shrimp, the food supply suddenly drops. And thus the bacteria population crashes. And therein lies the problem. The only way to prevent the crash would be to put a whole bunch of fish in the tank so that there was a high enough bioload to support the population. But nobody is going to tell you to do that. So why the shrimp? It's a contradiction, but it's also tradition, so it remains popular.

If you skip the shrimp, then you just start with a small population of bacteria. If you're adding fish slowly anyhow, then basically every time a new fish goes in, the food supply increases slightly, and the bacteria population grows slightly. It actually achieves balance sooner because you don't end up with the artificial population problems from the shrimp.

^^^ Exactly right, this is why ghost feeding a small pinch of flake food works just fine.

danderso · 01/23/2012, 08:31 AM

With 35 lbs of very good live rock you don't need an ammonia spike. There is enough bacteria in the lr already to handle the bioload of 1 dead shrimp. I have never had an ammonia spike because I started out with lr and added my bioload slowly allowing the already present bacteria time to increase. We do things like put in a dead shrimp or ghost feed when we start out dry or with very little lr because we want to jump start the bacteria. Again- unnecessary if you have that much lr.

cordell · 01/23/2012, 08:52 AM

I wonder if that is the case and the live rock is taking care of the load from the shrimp, wouldn't I be seeing some higher levels of nitrates? Would my skimmer be pulling out the nitrates? I just put the chaeto in 2 days ago (I hope not too early), so I know that's not where the nitrate is going.

Thanks for the suggestions and comments everybody...!

cordell · 01/23/2012, 08:54 AM

Oh and the stuff mentioned about the cycle and ghost feeding makes absolute sense to me. Thanks for that.. I'll be taking out the shrimp today when I get home. Will just ghost feed for a good while now.

tmerf11 · 01/23/2012, 09:15 AM

What are the negatives to cycling with a raw shrimp? I can't remember reading anything bad about it and I'm going thru the same thing with my cycle right now and a few people said to me that it wasn't the best way to go, but no specifics.

Edit: Read over the responses above again -- is the sudden drop in food for the bacteria once you remove the shrimp the primary downside??

cordell · 01/23/2012, 10:48 AM

That seems to be correct, Tmerf. Without a supply of ammonia once the shrimp is removed, the bacteria dies.

01/22/2012, 07:33 PM	#1
cordell Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Monroe, LA Posts: 655	1 week, 2 raw shrimp, no ammonia, diatoms. What's it mean? I guess this is another of the usual "what's this mean?" questions... I've only had my tank going for about 10 days now. I started with 90lb of dry rock, 30lb dry sand, 30lb caribsea live? sand(bc it was on sale). On the first day I started dropping in a good amount of pellet food each day. About 3 days later, I added about 35lb of very good live rock. The next day I added 2 raw shrimp inside pantyhose. I've been testing daily using Salifert test kits, and still have not seen any ammonia, nitrites or nitrates. I've been wondering if the cycle had even started because of the absence of anything on the tests... Yesterday, I started getting a light brown algae on the rocks and sand and throughout the day today it grew quickly so that it's very noticeable. From what I can tell, this is a diatom bloom and is normal. But I expected that sometime later during the cycle. Could the amount of live rock that I used be taking care of the ammonia coming off of the raw shrimp? But if that was the case, wouldn't I be seeing some nitrates? I've had the lights going for about 10hrs a day, but I'm going to turn them off for a while now since I've been reading it is unnecessary. The skimmer has been on too and has been almost filled to the top twice this week, but it's a lighter colored stuff, not the real dark stuff like usual. Should I leave the shrimp in? Does the diatom bloom mean the cycle must be started and well on its way in the right direction? No hurry here.. just trying to get an idea of what's going on. Diatoms? The shrimp, starting to look nasty on the outside Last edited by cordell; 01/22/2012 at 07:38 PM. Reason: Added pics...

01/22/2012, 07:40 PM	#2
zigzag1 Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Anderson, Indiana Posts: 1,276	I would keep waiting it out. Check again in two or three days, and monitor twice a week. Patience is the key to this hobby. JMTC & GL! __________________ :beer: Mixed Reef, started 10/2004: 6' BB 125g DT, 100lbs LR, 40g sump, Dual Ehiem 1000 returns, Eshopps dual overflow, JBJ ATO, Vertex IN-180, PM Ca reactor, 250w MH w/VHO Actinic, AC3 w/Aquasurf, Tunze 6105 pair & 40B frag tank 8 Fish, 20+ corals, shrimp, snails, worms, bugs, etc.

01/23/2012, 08:31 AM	#10
danderso Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Melbourne, FL Posts: 396	With 35 lbs of very good live rock you don't need an ammonia spike. There is enough bacteria in the lr already to handle the bioload of 1 dead shrimp. I have never had an ammonia spike because I started out with lr and added my bioload slowly allowing the already present bacteria time to increase. We do things like put in a dead shrimp or ghost feed when we start out dry or with very little lr because we want to jump start the bacteria. Again- unnecessary if you have that much lr. __________________ It's always sunny in my reef tank Current tank info- 7 gal nano with AI Prime

01/23/2012, 08:52 AM	#11
cordell Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Monroe, LA Posts: 655	I wonder if that is the case and the live rock is taking care of the load from the shrimp, wouldn't I be seeing some higher levels of nitrates? Would my skimmer be pulling out the nitrates? I just put the chaeto in 2 days ago (I hope not too early), so I know that's not where the nitrate is going. Thanks for the suggestions and comments everybody...! __________________ 75gal, ~120lb LR, started January 15, 2012. Probably mixed tank, only softies and couple LPS now. (2) 250w MH, 10g sump, 10g fuge, 10g QT Current inhabitants: 2 Ocellaris Clowns, few nassarius, cerith, and nerites; QT: Tricolor Wrasse and Firefish (both added 4/11)

01/23/2012, 08:54 AM	#12
cordell Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Monroe, LA Posts: 655	Oh and the stuff mentioned about the cycle and ghost feeding makes absolute sense to me. Thanks for that.. I'll be taking out the shrimp today when I get home. Will just ghost feed for a good while now. __________________ 75gal, ~120lb LR, started January 15, 2012. Probably mixed tank, only softies and couple LPS now. (2) 250w MH, 10g sump, 10g fuge, 10g QT Current inhabitants: 2 Ocellaris Clowns, few nassarius, cerith, and nerites; QT: Tricolor Wrasse and Firefish (both added 4/11)

01/22/2012, 07:43 PM	#3
cordell Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Monroe, LA Posts: 655	Sorry about the big size of the pics... resized them as usual in Photobucket, for some reason they are staying the original size?? Maybe it's just my computer..

01/22/2012, 08:07 PM	#5
Exxotic Moved On Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 55	You should not worry about it. 10 days into a cycle and you clearly are not seeing signs yet. Give it some time, every tank is different. I know there is a lot of debate obviously on the whole shrimp thing... but you seeded the tank with live rock, the shrimps been in there and your feeding pellets... I say you toss the shrimp because your just going to put bad nutrients into the tank now.... Just my opiniong. Good luck

01/22/2012, 10:36 PM	#6
cordell Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Monroe, LA Posts: 655	Yeah I was wondering about that shrimp... some say it's not a good idea, some say do it. Seems like it is that way about almost everything in this stuff! I'll probably pull them out in the morning or the next day and run some tests to see where things are.

01/23/2012, 08:06 AM	#7
Jocko Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Boston Posts: 595	Well to understand the shrimp thing, you just need to remember, like any population of creatures, a primary limiting factor for the size of your bacteria population will be availability of food. So if you put the shrimp in there, ultimately it's going to start putting out quite a bit of ammonia, which is going to create a large food supply. So of course your bacteria population is going to shoot up. Now the problem is, however, when you remove the shrimp, the food supply suddenly drops. And thus the bacteria population crashes. And therein lies the problem. The only way to prevent the crash would be to put a whole bunch of fish in the tank so that there was a high enough bioload to support the population. But nobody is going to tell you to do that. So why the shrimp? It's a contradiction, but it's also tradition, so it remains popular. If you skip the shrimp, then you just start with a small population of bacteria. If you're adding fish slowly anyhow, then basically every time a new fish goes in, the food supply increases slightly, and the bacteria population grows slightly. It actually achieves balance sooner because you don't end up with the artificial population problems from the shrimp.

01/23/2012, 09:15 AM	#13
tmerf11 Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 115	What are the negatives to cycling with a raw shrimp? I can't remember reading anything bad about it and I'm going thru the same thing with my cycle right now and a few people said to me that it wasn't the best way to go, but no specifics. Edit: Read over the responses above again -- is the sudden drop in food for the bacteria once you remove the shrimp the primary downside?? Last edited by tmerf11; 01/23/2012 at 09:25 AM.

01/23/2012, 10:48 AM	#14
cordell Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Monroe, LA Posts: 655	That seems to be correct, Tmerf. Without a supply of ammonia once the shrimp is removed, the bacteria dies. __________________ 75gal, ~120lb LR, started January 15, 2012. Probably mixed tank, only softies and couple LPS now. (2) 250w MH, 10g sump, 10g fuge, 10g QT Current inhabitants: 2 Ocellaris Clowns, few nassarius, cerith, and nerites; QT: Tricolor Wrasse and Firefish (both added 4/11)