Adding a Shrimp Required or Not?

[FZ1Rider]

I've started a tank that has been running for a almost 2 weeks now. I added the live rock 5 days ago but my Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates all remmained at ~0. after reading Melev's Reef Page I added two shrimp (scales on, although I think I should have taken them off). Was this a necessary step? I only added them a few hours ago so I can pull them before to much decomp happens.

Just curious, the reason for the shirmp seems logical but I'm still confused on why I didn't get a cycle from the LR (it's got a fair amount of coraline on it so it was cured) and if the cycle is absolutely necessary.

Any imput would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the help,
Peter

 

[FZ1Rider]

BTW, that's 40lbs of live rock that I added

 

[reeftanker04]

You're going to hear 2 sides to this story.

The first opinion is that you should NEVER put anything dead in your tank, the live rock will start your cycle and decaying matter will do your tank no good.

And on the other hand people will swear by the dead shrimp method. It's really up to you as both ways have succeeded and failed for reefers in the past.

 

[FZ1Rider]

Wow! Only two sides. That's about 30 sides less than I've gotten on every other question. Sweet!

 

[reeftanker04]

I just finished cycling a 29 gallon tank. My method was quite easy. Put in the live sand, add the live rock, get my penguin biowheel filled with carbon and that was it.

I waited around a month before I added livestock and haven't encountered any deadloss to this point.

 

[Paul B]

I personally would leave the shrimp in.
Paul

 

[SaltyDr]

Typically you should see some spike when LR is added unless it was VERY cured and wasn't out of the water for very long. Adding the shrimp for a while is fine as long as there is not any livestock in the tank. If the LR already has lots of bacteria, you should only have a small bump in your ammonia and should see the nitrates rise pretty quickly.