How much Ammonia to start cycle?

[markhilken]

How high do I want my ammonia to go(PPM) before I pull the source of the ammonia(fresh shrimp) and start testing for nitrite? 15 gallon tank with 1 powerhead, 15 lbs of LFS live sand from there vats and 10 lbs liverock and 10 lbs of dry rock. Have two large shrimp and after 3 days test about .75 ppm ammonia. Had the tank sitting and running for about a week before placing shrimp in tank to start cycling. Just for s***s and giggles I teted for ammonia prior to placing shrimp in tank and came in at 0 and this with Salifert tests
Thanks

 

[VAReefDog]

I spiked mine up to 1-2 ppm. Seemed to work well. I used pure ammonia from Ace hardware. Once it cycled the initial ammonia to nitrite- I brought level back up to 0.5-1 ppm a couple of times over following week.
But this was cycling mostly dry rock with only a couple seed LR and I let things go about 4-5 weeks to fully cycle.

 

[Yellow Eyes]

I spiked mine using clear ammonia to 2-3ppm. I've read that the general consensus is to not go over 5ppm.

As for the shrimp, you should probably be okay to leave it in the tank the whole time (not from experience, but from what others have said). It will decay and be a constant source of ammonia for your cycle. You should see a peak and then it will decay as nitrite rises. I also believe the shrimp will/should/can completely dissolve, but again, just from what I have read from others.

[Edit]Also just be patient. Mine took 4.5-5 weeks to cycle. It'll be worth the wait in the end.

 

[pREEFERED]

I used 2 raw shrimp to spike ammonia... tank is still only almost 2 weeks in, everything seems to be moving along. i recommend you remove the shell, just so you don't have to go digging for it later...

 

[TwistedMind]

I used ammonia, I took it to 4ppm waited until it dropped to 1 ppm took it back to 4 ppm, did this 5 times total. Then when it dropped to undetectable ammonia in did a 50 percent water Change which brought my nitrates down to 20 ppm. I then added enough ammonia to raise it to 1 ppm waited for that to reach undetectable roughly 30 hours, did another 50 percent water Change and went and bought 3 fish. 2 tank bred clowns, and a purple fire fish. Took about 5 weeks to finish my cycling, everything is going pretty good so far, 3 months in. Have 4 fish, and 4 corals. Nitrates rise from 10 ppm to 20 ppm during the 7 days between my water changes. Tank isn't old enough to have much denitrification abilities yet as I used dry rock so I'm depending on 15 gallon water changes every week to keep things going well.

 

[4Hummer]

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/the-almost-complete-guide-and-faq-to-fishless-cycling/