[Beano]

Today I smelled a stench coming from my latest tank set up. Sure enough the ammonia test kit showed a 0.5 to 1ppm reading. I am not sure why the spike occurred. I am thinking my 2 week cycling with the use of niteout bacteria wasn't enough or it was the large moss balls I had placed in the tank a week before which may have live micro creatures and algae that died causing the ammonia spike. I took out my shrimps to another tank and also extracted all the moss balls and Marimo balls.

My question is should I let the high ammonia water go through the nitrogen cycle before placing in the moss balls and marimo balls? Or should cycle the tank with these moss balls?

[odin]

I doubt the mossballs would cause you issues by leaving them in, but i would let the tank settle down before adding the shrimp. How old is the tank? I see you have had it cycling for 2 weeks.

[Beano]

Yeah it's a new tank and this is the 3rd week since setting it up. The moss balls I bought from a fish shop were in a freshwater tank that was aerated. The fish shop owner wasn't sure if they could cope with brackish water but I decided to take the risk since they look nice. They look like Marimo balls but are the size of golf balls Ok anyway I will let the tank stabilize further first then. Thanks Odin for the advice

[Vorteil]

Why not add a sponge filter in there to clean it up? Once it settles down remove it and add the shrimp back in?

[odin]

A filter won't remove ammonia unfortunately, I only houses bacteria that removes the ammonia but his issue is the lack of friendly bacteria in the first place.


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[Beano]

I forgot to mention earlier that I did not drop fish food periodically to generate ammonia during the first two weeks. I probably should have done that. Dumping in bacteria probably didn't help without a high initial level of ammonia

[odin]

You have a few options really, let the tank mature and wait for algae growth before introducing the shrimp again but this can take a month or two, put the shrimps in but do large water changes when you get ammonia readings or buy some Prodibio Biodigest to add to the tank while the shrimps are in and this will eliminate the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates by the way of adding bacteria your self. If you have other Opae ula tanks id take some substrate and water from that already mature tank and introduce it to the new tank to really speed up the cycling process.

Starting the cycling process with fish food etc is great for setting the tank up for huge bioloads but with it being an opea ula tank its over kill unless you plan to dump in hundreds of shrimp all at once. There is no harm in experimenting a bit though! Your test kit will let you know when its all safe.

[Beano]

Thanks for the guidance Odin.

[odin]

Any time man!


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