Cycling

[Aquarimax]

I starter Cycling my new 5.5 and 10 gallon opae'ula tanks about 3 weeks ago. At the time I added some cycled lava rock from my current tanks, as well as some trumpet snails. The snails are reproducing and there is visible algae growth, particularly in the 10 gallon. The plan is to add a few shrimp to each tank (~10) after acclimating then using the drip method. If I want to test for ammonia/nitrites/nitrates, do I use a freshwater or saltwater test kit?

Any tips before I proceed?

[Aquarimax]

I went ahead and added 5 shrimp to the 10 gallon today. They seem fine so far. I will add about the same number to the 5.5 tomorrow. If they all seem to be fine for a week or so, I will as more shrimp. I am thinking about 30
Shrimp per tank ought to be a good place to start-- plenty of room for reproduction.

[KenCotigirl]

I am slow when it comes to providing a response. It appears you have done ok. The test kits I use are for both salt and fresh.

Ken

[Mustafa]

By the way...no drip adjustment needed. Just dump the shrimp into their new home. Algae growth is always a good sign as it usually indicates that your tank is ready. Good luck!

[Aquarimax]

By the way...no drip adjustment needed. Just dump the shrimp into their new home. Algae growth is always a good sign as it usually indicates that your tank is ready. Good luck!

That is good news! No drip acclimation even when there is a fairly big difference in salinity, like 1.007 vs. 1016?

[Mustafa]

Yeah...that's still not a *huge* difference when it comes to these shrimp. If you want to be absolutely sure, though, that the shrimp aren't bothered then you can just fill a small bowl with shrimp and their original water and then slowly by hand add about half the volume of the water they are in with the new water. The filling shouldn't take longer than a minute or two. Do the same thing about half an hour later and then dump the whole thing into their new tank.

[dapug]

I've been reading a lot on cycling and my head is spinning. The suggestions on petshrimp.com pretty much say throw some water in and let it sit for 3 weeks. But many articles I've read elsewhere talk all about how ammonia is needed else the healthy bacteria will never grow (nothing to "eat"), or how important it is to borrow media from an established tank, or use a bio additive like tetra safestart (questionable results there), or add snails as mentioned in this thread. But then, will snails survive in a non heated, non filtered, low oxy enviro like this?

Frustrating. What is really needed?

I currently have brackish water I got from my LFS (clean, not from an established tank), and some rocks I got from the live coral bin at the LFS in my tank, sitting in sunlight. will this build the bacteria and algae needed? I just don't want to sit for 3 weeks only to find nothing cycled, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates all at zero.

[Carolina]

I am no expert.... But I just did a cycling in 10g tank and it went great.
I did start with one gallon from my other tank, snails, and macro-algae.
For the ammonia, I fed my snails (fish food will raise ammonia levels too, and will be safe for your creatures). I will say though.... This tank started as a total accident; I had to quickly re-home 4 black devil snails (the ones I used to cycle the tank), as they were way too big for my original tank. Yep, this tank was created for them... Snails as far as I know, are important in the cycling process as they add bioload into the system... In my specific case.... They added a LOT. These were huge snails, and I can't tell you how much they poop! I am quite sure this helped my cycling quite a bit!
For the beneficial bacteria, and so I didn't kill them in the process, since they were added to a completely uncycled tank, I added Seachem Stability for the first seven days, as recommended in the bottle,and then once a week.
My tank has lava rocks, a coral, a kettle bone, and the substrate is aragonite sand.
The tank cycled beautifully and in about a month I added my shrimp..... They are doing amazing. By that time the coral was completely green, there was algae on the rocks, biofilm on the substrate, and quite a bit of algae on the glass.
As far as light.... Both my tanks have good LED lights on a 12hr timer.
I am sure everyone does it a little different....
That's how worked for me.
P.S.: I had to rehome the snails as the feeding would be too much for the health of my Opae. I substituted them for the MST snails mentioned in this forum. I am an exception to the rule... Most use them during cycling....
Good luck!

[Aquarimax]

Yeah...that's still not a *huge* difference when it comes to these shrimp. If you want to be absolutely sure, though, that the shrimp aren't bothered then you can just fill a small bowl with shrimp and their original water and then slowly by hand add about half the volume of the water they are in with the new water. The filling shouldn't take longer than a minute or two. Do the same thing about half an hour later and then dump the whole thing into their new tank.

Amazing creatures! I've moved approximately 40-50 to the larger tanks and haven't had a single issue.

[Mustafa]

Glad there weren't any problems.