- Location
- Greenpoint Brooklyn, NY
The raw fish isn't necessary at all, the tank will still cycle, all its doing is giving you an earlier ammonia jump for the bacteria to mass reproduce. So, instead of a week or two depending on the tank volume for the initial ammonia spike, it will happen in 2-3 days. It saves you a week or so time on the cycle.
Here is a good graph showing what you want to look for when cycling:
Ammonia spikes (bacteria food), then nitrite (broken down ammonia), and then you get your nitrate (bacteria poop). When there is no more ammonia and no more nitrite and your tank is steadily producing nitrate in your tank then you know your cycle is over. The water change is to remove your nitrates to an acceptable level in your fishtank which you want as low as possible with regular WC's and removal techniques.
Here is a good read for cycling a nano tank. Gives you all the info you might ever want.
http://www.nano-reef.com/articles/?article=17
There are also plenty of posts and web sites that give a more basic answer to the question.
Basically, what you want your tank to do is balance out the amount of bacteria to the amount of waste produced in your tank. This will automatically happen with or without pee or a dead shrimp, all it takes is time. Food (ammonia) is already present if your using "live" sand and "Live" rock because of the normal die off in transit (air and dryness kill the bacteria present on the live rock) and you should already have some bacteria present as it hitchhikes on the rock.
So, no big deal right? bacteria is there and ammonia, we should be set up to add fish and coral. The bacteria will eat the ammonia and when its gone we are ready. Wrong. The bacteria will "bloom" or mass reproduce because there is food present in the tank and they will keep reproducing until there is no more food. At that point you have way too much bacteria in your tank and zero food, so the bacteria start to die off as they starve. As they die off they produce more food for the tank and "readjust" the population to the amount of food in the tank from the die off. This keeps happening until the bacteria matches food output in your tank and stabilizes, thus the steady increase in nutrates. When this happens your tank is ready for fish/coral. This process usually takes 2 weeks after your first ammonia spike.
The thing to keep in mind is that everytime you add fish/coral/LR to your tank you will be producing more waste, and the "cycle" will happen to adjust to the new food source which is why you don't want to add too much too quick because you will cause another big cycle with high amounts of ammonia that will kill stuff in your tank. You typically want to wait 2-3 weeks between adding large waste producing elements into your tank to let the bacteria readjust to the new waste amount. So, 1-2 small fish or coral every 2 weeks in your 20g nano tank.
Here is a good graph showing what you want to look for when cycling:
Ammonia spikes (bacteria food), then nitrite (broken down ammonia), and then you get your nitrate (bacteria poop). When there is no more ammonia and no more nitrite and your tank is steadily producing nitrate in your tank then you know your cycle is over. The water change is to remove your nitrates to an acceptable level in your fishtank which you want as low as possible with regular WC's and removal techniques.
Here is a good read for cycling a nano tank. Gives you all the info you might ever want.
http://www.nano-reef.com/articles/?article=17
There are also plenty of posts and web sites that give a more basic answer to the question.
Basically, what you want your tank to do is balance out the amount of bacteria to the amount of waste produced in your tank. This will automatically happen with or without pee or a dead shrimp, all it takes is time. Food (ammonia) is already present if your using "live" sand and "Live" rock because of the normal die off in transit (air and dryness kill the bacteria present on the live rock) and you should already have some bacteria present as it hitchhikes on the rock.
So, no big deal right? bacteria is there and ammonia, we should be set up to add fish and coral. The bacteria will eat the ammonia and when its gone we are ready. Wrong. The bacteria will "bloom" or mass reproduce because there is food present in the tank and they will keep reproducing until there is no more food. At that point you have way too much bacteria in your tank and zero food, so the bacteria start to die off as they starve. As they die off they produce more food for the tank and "readjust" the population to the amount of food in the tank from the die off. This keeps happening until the bacteria matches food output in your tank and stabilizes, thus the steady increase in nutrates. When this happens your tank is ready for fish/coral. This process usually takes 2 weeks after your first ammonia spike.
The thing to keep in mind is that everytime you add fish/coral/LR to your tank you will be producing more waste, and the "cycle" will happen to adjust to the new food source which is why you don't want to add too much too quick because you will cause another big cycle with high amounts of ammonia that will kill stuff in your tank. You typically want to wait 2-3 weeks between adding large waste producing elements into your tank to let the bacteria readjust to the new waste amount. So, 1-2 small fish or coral every 2 weeks in your 20g nano tank.
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