Almost ready to add water - advise please!

[gridley]

Originally Posted by Enigma

-1 to the shrimp. It will get gross, nasty, and could introduce bacteria into your tank that you don't want in there.

I would just add some pellet fish food to get it going, and keep ghost feeding the tank throughout the cycle. Otherwise, you can add ammonia (don't remember how much per gallon).

I've read that urine (which is quite antiseptic for the most part) is a good way to get a tank going too. I haven't tried that approach.

Wow! I sure appreciate the thoughts and advice - I will take all but the last under consideration! LOL

[molotov]

I recently got my tank wet. For washing my sand I had a bucket in the back yard and put my garden hose in the bottom of the bucket. Slowly I poured the sand into the bucket while the continuous water flow from the hose overflowed and took with it all the dust and washed it away. I found it very effective.

I then slowly diluted my salt in a seperate bucket before pouring it into my tank to avoid salt settling on the bottom. Once the salt was diluted I poured the mixture into my sump.

With all the pumps and powerheads running I placed some live rock I bought from a fellow canreefer who was tearing his tank down.

I'm currently cycling my tank. It's been cycling for a week now with no significant rise in amonia. I've been ghost feeding red flaked fish food. If I don't see any noticable rise in amonia I may add a raw shrimp to the setup to see if that speeds it along. Although I've heard that adding a dead shrimp creates quite the stench.

Hope that helps.