# Cycling



## Tehpwner (Aug 29, 2010)

Hey I got some frozen brine shrimp from the pet store for cycling my tank but it is the frozen cube ones. Can I still use those for cycling?


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## Murphy18 (Oct 17, 2008)

Never really heard of that before. I dont think it would work. You wanna get some raw shrimp or any other raw fish, toss it in and leave it. Or you can get a bunch of goldfish to cycle the tank. How bigs the tank?


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## Guest (Sep 11, 2010)

Read this:

http://www.piranha-fury.com/pfury/index.php?/topic/88804-fishless-cycling-101/

Basicly you can cycle a couple of ways. Using frozen Brine shrimp is not one of them :laugh:

Do a fishless cycle using Pure Ammonia or using feeder fish. By reading the above link it will tell you the ways to cycle your tank and what to test for.


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

In teory frozen brine shrimp will work as all you need is an ammonia soucre, but you would be wasting wasting half a pack or more to start the cycle depending on tank size as opposed to some pure ammonia, a couple cocktail shrimp or feeders. Yes it could work but imo its not very economical. Id just get some cocktail shrimp or get a piece of frozen fillet and throw it in


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## Tehpwner (Aug 29, 2010)

CLUSTER ONE said:


> In teory frozen brine shrimp will work as all you need is an ammonia soucre, but you would be wasting wasting half a pack or more to start the cycle depending on tank size as opposed to some pure ammonia, a couple cocktail shrimp or feeders. Yes it could work but imo its not very economical. Id just get some cocktail shrimp or get a piece of frozen fillet and throw it in


Ok thanks man. You have been alot of help. But I got somemore questions. Can I rinse my new filter media (biomax and carbon) in tap water?


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

Tehpwner said:


> In teory frozen brine shrimp will work as all you need is an ammonia soucre, but you would be wasting wasting half a pack or more to start the cycle depending on tank size as opposed to some pure ammonia, a couple cocktail shrimp or feeders. Yes it could work but imo its not very economical. Id just get some cocktail shrimp or get a piece of frozen fillet and throw it in


Ok thanks man. You have been alot of help. But I got somemore questions. Can I rinse my new filter media (biomax and carbon) in tap water?
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If you just bought it and your trying to rinse any dust from manufacturing yes. Often times carbon and such says rinse media before use. I think the directions for carbon is to rinse it untill there is no black particles coming out. For biomedia aa quick rinse is fien to remove any dust from manufaturing and when ceramics grind together during transit.

After its established (colonized by bacteria) then never rinse the biological media in tap water. When your running a tank always clean all biological media in tank water. Generally what i do is throw the bio media into a bucket of tank water and mix it by hand to get the dirt suspended in the water then pour the probably cloudy water down the drain and siphone more tank water into the bucket. You will do this a couple times untill the water your pouring out isnt still cloudy and dirty. idealy you want to pour as much water out as you can while still keeping the media submerged. You want to keep the bacteria underwater as much as possible so if you pour too much water out and the media is not submerged just go siphoen more tank water into the bucket right away.


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## Guest (Sep 12, 2010)

There's no reason why frozen brine shrimp wouldn't cycle an aquarium. It still contains protein/amino acids that decompose into ammonia. It's just an unusual choice. I've always cycled new aquariums using cheap, small fish.

The best hing you can do for a cycling aqurium is to introduce some of the ammonia/nitrite oxidizing bacteria to your aquarium after you have established a constant source of ammonia. The best way to do this is to add some filter media, or even a little gravel from an established aquarium to the new aquarium. This will signifigantly speed up the cycling process.

Treat the bacteria containing items like fish and don't let it dry out or overheat when moving it from one aqurium to the next.


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## Tehpwner (Aug 29, 2010)

Bullsnake said:


> There's no reason why frozen brine shrimp wouldn't cycle an aquarium. It still contains protein/amino acids that decompose into ammonia. It's just an unusual choice. I've always cycled new aquariums using cheap, small fish.
> 
> The best hing you can do for a cycling aqurium is to introduce some of the ammonia/nitrite oxidizing bacteria to your aquarium after you have established a constant source of ammonia. The best way to do this is to add some filter media, or even a little gravel from an established aquarium to the new aquarium. This will signifigantly speed up the cycling process.
> 
> Treat the bacteria containing items like fish and don't let it dry out or overheat when moving it from one aqurium to the next.


So I have to get an ammonia source before I put in nutrifin?


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## Guest (Sep 15, 2010)

Tehpwner said:


> So I have to get an ammonia source before I put in nutrifin?


Yes, the beneficial bacteria that oxidize the ammonia need something to eat or they will quickly perish.

The bacteria actually eat the ammonia by converting it to nitrite and living off the energy difference between the two molecules.


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## gavinol (Aug 18, 2010)

There's no reason why frozen brine shrimp wouldn't cycle an aquarium..Thanks for sharing so useful information


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## Tehpwner (Aug 29, 2010)

gavinol said:


> There's no reason why frozen brine shrimp wouldn't cycle an aquarium..Thanks for sharing so useful information


So I now have a reading of 0.05 ppm of ammonia that considered an ammonia spike or should I wait till it gets higher?


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