Curing dry rock and adding live rock

[Fish Fan]

The bad news is that if I want ammonia today I have to go to my lfs. Petco and petsmart don't have it. I can go to St. Louis tomorrow, it's not that far.

It's available at Amazon, Chewy and BRS too. You can also use a piece of shrimp that you get at a grocery store or even fish food to raise ammonia. Take a look at what @Tahoe61 posted above; very good information.

 

[Redbird5]

It's available at Amazon, Chewy and BRS too. You can also use a piece of shrimp that you get at a grocery store or even fish food to raise ammonia. Take a look at what @Tahoe61 posted above; very good information.

How often do I have to put shrimp in the aquarium?

 

[Fish Fan]

How often do I have to put shrimp in the aquarium?

With a piece of shrimp, typically one piece, once, at the beginning of the cycle.

But friend please; just go back, watch a couple of the videos I posted, re-read the replies here that have all been very good. We're not putting fish on the moon here, just starting a new tank :)

 

[Don’t fear the reefer]

It feels like you’re missing the concept here. So I’ll walk it through. Don’t mean to patronize.

Your tank starts with beautiful, clean water. You add fish. The fish swim in the water. They eat fish food … then they take a dump in the water. It rots (so does uneaten fish food or dead fish) which means bacteria eat it. The bacteria also dump, but their dump is ammonia (NH3) which is pretty toxic to fish. Different bacteria eat NH3 and then dump nitrite (NO2), and then other bacteria eat NO2 and dump nitrate (NO3) which is not very toxic.

When your tank water was clean, the later-stage bacteria weren’t in it because there was no NH3. Tank cycling is the time it takes for these other bacteria to multiply enough so that all the fish dump gets eaten.

Dry rock doesn’t have any bacteria. Live rock does. All “live rock” means is the rock already is covered with nitrifying bacteria. Live rock from the ocean has the most diversity of bacteria (and other creatures).

So yes, you can cycle using a piece of shrimp or other fish food or a dead fish or whatever. You want it to rot. That’s the point. Better to use rotting sea creatures than land creatures because the bacteria you want to do the rotting will be more used to eating sea creatures. So I wouldn’t throw in a steak. Maybe tuna steak. Shrimp is cheaper though.

 

[charleydavis]

Well my LFS said they opposite. That I need to add bacteria every day buy not ammonia. Now I'm confused.

Your LFS is wrong on this one

 

[charleydavis]

You're LSF is incorrect, they just want to sell you the bacteria. Please listen to R2R, I promise you'll do better :)

Here's Dr. Tim's step-by-step, maybe this will help:
https://www.drtimsaquatics.com/resources/fishless-cycling/

When you add live animals to your tank they will be producing ammonia daily.