# how many shrimp to cycle a 10 gallon?



## allaboutfish (May 18, 2011)

ghost shrimp are dieing in my 29 gallon tank (dumb cockatoo apisto). so i was gonna cycle with a couple ghost shrimp. so how many do i need?


----------



## automatic-hydromatic (Oct 18, 2010)

shrimp don't produce a whole lot of wastes, so it would probably take quite a few; at least a dozen or so I would imagine

but at least ghost shrimp are cheap  personally, I would just do 3 or 4 shrimp, and maybe a pair of Molley's to cycle it


----------



## allaboutfish (May 18, 2011)

no dead decomposing ghost shrimp not live ones.


----------



## automatic-hydromatic (Oct 18, 2010)

ooooh

well that's different, lol

sorry, I misunderstood

there's not a lot to a ghost shrimp, so it might take 5 or 6, I would think anyway. but I've never cycle without live fish, so I couldn't say for sure


----------



## allaboutfish (May 18, 2011)

hmmmmm... idk i really want to cycle with live fish but it's better for the fish if i dont. i think 2 would be ok bc they tell you to use 2 raw shrimp, but ill put in 3.


----------



## Fearmancer (Apr 24, 2011)

Its possible to cycle without any fish whatsoever. I've pesonally never done it and it seems like a bit of work. RTBob has a guide for it. Here


----------



## allaboutfish (May 18, 2011)

thats what im doing im doing s fishless cycle with dead shrimp


----------



## Fearmancer (Apr 24, 2011)

Well I honestly wouldn't cycle with dead shrimp for a few reasons. One; decaying matter puts off more chemicals than ammonia that could possibly have you start with an unhealthy tank. Two; you will need a LOT of dead shrimp over a period of time to fully cycle a tank. Three; it will take much, much longer to cycle the tank. Finally, four; There is no way to measure the amount of ammonia you will get from decaying shrimp, you could either not get enough ammonia and stall the cycle, or too much and kill off all the beneficial bacteria(BB), thus stalling the cycle. Some side notes; I would imagine that would stink and a cycling tank is gross enough. Just my .02 tho. But read the guide and see if thats right for you. I personally plan to use a fishless cycle the next time I need to.
Edit: Although using the dead shrimp could help things along.


----------



## ReStart (Jan 3, 2011)

My experience with fishless cycle has been like this, using just ammonia. The first tank was a 20g hex and the second was 55g. I started both tanks with a filter pad from a fully cycled tank. I just added a little ammonia (about a quarter teaspoon per gallon) until I reached the 4. ppm mark. Wait 24 hours, test, add ammonia until you are back to the 4 ppm. Start with less ammonia until you find what works for you. I was surprised at how much ammonia it took to reach 4 ppm. This may depend on the strength of your ammonia liquid.

After about a week of this, I was seeing Nitrites. For me, there was not a sudden large spike, but over a few days Nitrites increased to about .5 - 1.0 ppm. At this point I was seeing 0 ammonia after 24 hours and was back to adding the quarter teaspoon per gallon. DON'T' trust me on this, add ammonia a little at a time and test. That's the only way you'll know what's happening in YOUR tank. I think temperature and pH affects this. Again, I was surprised at how much ammonia I was having to add each day.

After about another week, Nitrites went to zero. I then started seeing very low levels of Nitrates, very low levels, like around 20 or less. I kept adding ammonia until the level reached 4 ppm just after adding the ammonia and would always be a zero the next day.

After a week of this, I started adding some fish, just one or two at a time and stopped the ammonia treatments. Ammonia and Nitrites stayed at zero and Nitrates slowly increased and I started my 20% wc's. I still tested fully, every day.

As you can see, most of my experience was pretty much like the book says, except that it took more ammonia to get 4 ppm and I did not see a clean, high Nitrite spike and Nitrates stayed pretty prettly low. Maybe if I had waited longer I would have seen more Nitrates but I figured the fish would do that for me.

It's a pretty clean way to go and for me, only took about three weeks or so. I should have kept logs but did not so all this is just based on my memory.

Oh, and after I did all this, somebody told me not to use ammonia with sufficants. Oops, too late, mine had ammonia, water and sufficants. I guess you should find ammonia without the sufficants.


----------



## Rohkey (Apr 25, 2011)

Fearmancer said:


> Its possible to cycle without any fish whatsoever. I've pesonally never done it and it seems like a bit of work. RTBob has a guide for it. Here


It's not a lot of work, you just use ammonia instead of fish, etc. It's really the best way to do it because once the tank is cycled you can add as many fish as you want to the tank basically. I'd personally take out the shrimp and do it this way because you'll only be adding ammonia to the tank (not other decaying matter as has been pointed out) and there's no guess work involved, just figure out how much ammonia it takes to reach the 2-4 ppm mark and add that daily. Lots of testing, yes, lots of work, no.


----------



## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

If you want to do it with shrimp, the ghost shrimp might not be enough. Go to the grocery store and get some frozen shrimp and put two in a nylon bag and do it that way.

Fishless cycle is better, but dosing with ammonia is the preferred method - for me anyway. You have control of the ammonia levels generated in the tank and the whole process is more under control. Plus, doing with some type of decaying food leaves you with a nasty tank that you have to clean once the cycle has completed.


----------

