Trying a new cycling method

[mike.d]

Hi everyone. I'm new to the forum. But I've been lurking here for a while. I wanted to get some opinions on a cycling method I'm trying.

1. I mixed up some brackish water.
2. I took a clear, 1 gallon water bottle, put in about an inch of aragonite. (10 pound bag from Petco.)
3. Rinsed the aragonite until it was mostly clear.
4. Filled the clear bottle with the brackish water.
5. I left it outside where it would get plenty of sun. Nothing happened for about a week.
6. I got impatient. I added 1 shrimp pellet and a single sprig of java moss. Still nothing.
7. A week later, I added two small freshwater snails and some scraped algae from a 50g ciclid tank we have.
8. That was about a week ago. Now the water looks slightly green and there appears to be a biofilm on top.

I'm thinking I can use this 1 gallon to seed a 10 gallon tank. Is this wrong?

How long do I have until the seed gallon dies on its own or becomes unsuitable?
-- The reason I'm asking is I have a planted 10-gallon tank that I want to take down and use for supershrimp, but I'm waiting for a single RCS in the tank to die. I don't mean to be sentimental, but I got a batch of 13 RCS from another vendor and all but 2 of them died within a 2 months. This is the last one and it just seems mean to kill him. That was almost a year ago, so he shouldn't have too much longer.

I'm worried I made a mistake by being impatient and adding the freshwater algae, java moss, and snails (which died very quickly). The java moss just turned yellow and I took it out. Did I hurry the process along or destroy my chances?

Thanks for any advice.

[Varanus]

Well the animals and plants you put in all died because it was brackish water and they are freshwater creatures. As for what that would do to your cycling, well it would I guess introduce a lot of organic matter that would decay and provide fuel for the bacteria, but whether the bacteria have multiplied enough to reduce the ammonia to a safe amount is another thing. Doing a water test would be the easiest way to know for sure.

I would say that as long as the "seed gallon" is still producing algae then it still has a functioning system. As for whether or not it would make a 10 gallon tank instantly ready for shrimp, I'm not so sure. The fact is the tank's system always has to adjust to new bioloads (namely adding animals), the key is to not overwhelm it so that the adjustment happens fast enough to not harm the animals.

Trying out new methods is all well and good, but when in doubt I would go with what has been proven effective.

[Mustafa]

This won't work. "Cycling" works on tank surfaces not the water. Just transferring water won't instantly cycle a tank. You'll have to let the 10 gallon go through the same procedure as every other Supershrimp shrimp tank. In other words...wait until you see algae growth on surfaces.

[mike.d]

Thanks guys.

Yeah, I expected the snails to die. I wanted to get some bio matter in there. The food (shrimp pellet) wasn't making a difference. I was thinking the same for the java moss, but it didn't break down. It just turned yellow.

[mike.d]

I just wanted to post an update. I got tired of waiting for the RCS to die so I transferred it to a 1.2 gallon tank I bought from PetSmart.

Last week, I got to work on setting up the 10g. I spent the weekend rinsing 10 pounds of aragonite. The stuff just wouldn't clear. I put it all in the tank with a sponge filter but that didn't work either. The fine particles just moved right through the sponge. More rinsing, still not clear. I replaced the sponge with a strip from a polyfiber media pad, wrapping the strip around where the sponge would go. That cleared it up really well. I added the aragonite from the gallon of "starter" mentioned previously.

With the aragonite in place I added some lava rock from my old 10g and two big rocks from the 50g cichlid tank. I mixed up some brackish DI water and added it all to the tank, along with the starter water. I threw in one freshwater snail, which died instantly, for biomatter.

Today I noticed green algae growing on the substrate and the lava rocks. It's been about a week. I do have a pretty strong light on that tank and I'm sure I introduced algae from the 50g cichlid tank on the lava rocks I transferred over.

The result of the experiment is inconclusive, but I don't think it hurt anything.

[Keystone]

Sounds like your biomatter donor got hurt

[mike.d]

Yeah. You can see his shell in the foreground of the picture.