Home » Community » Cycle crashed in a single day. Params had been 0,0,5. Proper earlier than including shrimp final night time, I modified the hardscape & added a…
Cycle crashed in a single day. Params had been 0,0,5. Proper earlier than including shrimp final night time, I modified the hardscape & added a…
I’m not 100% sure what could’ve cause the crash but I would do a solid water change.. maybe 80% or so with those readings when I had first started my tank it was reading this high and I did a massive water change and all the levels stabilized. I’m sorry your cycle crashed and you lost your buddies. I’m still learning this shrimp life and have lost some shrimp buddies as well.
Fluval substrates filter out KH and GH from the water. Are you able to test for those, as well as pH?
KH helps in keeping pH stable, acting as a sort of buffer. Fluval removed that buffer, causing PH to lower. It’s often used intentionally for this purpose, to keep a tank at a low, but stable, pH.
It seems very likely to me that the fluval dropped the pH, and a sudden pH drop can be very deadly to shrimp. In turn, dead shrimp will cause an ammonia spike, and your bacteria colony wouldn’t have been able to grow enough overnight to handle all the sudden ammonia.
Good news, your cycle didn’t crash, as it is cycling.
Bad news, the (likely) Fluval Stratum released ammonia (as folks who use it find per a quick search). Your bacteria is cycling that ammonia to nitrite and nitrates, sadly both toxic in those levels.
So essentially the substrate resulted in an ammonia spike.
More bad news, you don’t mentioned what type of shrimp, but Statum is a buffering substrate per my understanding, meaning it’ll lower the pH and deplete carbonate minerals. This is okay for some Caridina species that prefer softer water, but not Neocaridina and others that need calcium carbonate in the water column (and magnesium to uptake the former). I also wouldn’t add shrimp until you find out what the KH, GH and new pH of the tank will be with the parameters resulting from the substrate to see which species the water will support.
How much hardscape did you change, and what is your filtration system? Quite a bit of the beneficial bacteria often lives on the substrate/hardscape, so swapping out too much at once can be risky unfortunately
same exact thing happened to me, lost 7 of 15 shrimp. I don’t know what caused it but I immediately did a water change, added API Quick Start, and kept water changes going until it leveled out.
I’ve had little microspikes before, but I have never seen something Spike that hard so fast. That is insane, I have a tiny little five gallon aquarium, and the most all-see is maybe a quarter of a part per million of ammonia and nitrate
Could it be possible that there was some sort of chemical or cleaner on top of the materials that you put into the tank that resulted in the death of the bacteria? The only way that I could imagine something spiking that hard is that there was literally nothing to deal with it
You didn’t crash the cycle you overloaded they cycle i try not to add more than a 1/4 cup per gallon at a time. Like I feel its dicy to add a pint per 10 gallon at a time
Biostratum is a lot like ecocomplete. Your cycle didnt crash, thats just some organics included in biostratum rotting away for the “bio” in biostratum to churn and thus, fulfill the claims biostratum makes.
Did you notice that biostratum had a lot of water in it when you added it? Thats the rotting organics and different strains of beneficial bacteria that biostratum says it has. Ecocomplete has it too.
Honestly id give it a day or two, maybe 5 at most and check the parameters again. Should be 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites since that. You didn’t do anything wrong, just biostratum doing what it says its supposed to do
evilapple678 
I’m not 100% sure what could’ve cause the crash but I would do a solid water change.. maybe 80% or so with those readings when I had first started my tank it was reading this high and I did a massive water change and all the levels stabilized. I’m sorry your cycle crashed and you lost your buddies. I’m still learning this shrimp life and have lost some shrimp buddies as well.
Fluval substrates filter out KH and GH from the water. Are you able to test for those, as well as pH?
KH helps in keeping pH stable, acting as a sort of buffer. Fluval removed that buffer, causing PH to lower. It’s often used intentionally for this purpose, to keep a tank at a low, but stable, pH.
It seems very likely to me that the fluval dropped the pH, and a sudden pH drop can be very deadly to shrimp. In turn, dead shrimp will cause an ammonia spike, and your bacteria colony wouldn’t have been able to grow enough overnight to handle all the sudden ammonia.
Sorry for the loss of your shrimp friends 😔
Good news, your cycle didn’t crash, as it is cycling.
Bad news, the (likely) Fluval Stratum released ammonia (as folks who use it find per a quick search). Your bacteria is cycling that ammonia to nitrite and nitrates, sadly both toxic in those levels.
So essentially the substrate resulted in an ammonia spike.
More bad news, you don’t mentioned what type of shrimp, but Statum is a buffering substrate per my understanding, meaning it’ll lower the pH and deplete carbonate minerals. This is okay for some Caridina species that prefer softer water, but not Neocaridina and others that need calcium carbonate in the water column (and magnesium to uptake the former). I also wouldn’t add shrimp until you find out what the KH, GH and new pH of the tank will be with the parameters resulting from the substrate to see which species the water will support.
How much hardscape did you change, and what is your filtration system? Quite a bit of the beneficial bacteria often lives on the substrate/hardscape, so swapping out too much at once can be risky unfortunately
same exact thing happened to me, lost 7 of 15 shrimp. I don’t know what caused it but I immediately did a water change, added API Quick Start, and kept water changes going until it leveled out.
I’ve had little microspikes before, but I have never seen something Spike that hard so fast. That is insane, I have a tiny little five gallon aquarium, and the most all-see is maybe a quarter of a part per million of ammonia and nitrate
Best of luck, I hope everything works out
Could it be possible that there was some sort of chemical or cleaner on top of the materials that you put into the tank that resulted in the death of the bacteria? The only way that I could imagine something spiking that hard is that there was literally nothing to deal with it
That’s crazy. Sorry you lost so many shrimp. Thank you for the warning.
You didn’t crash the cycle you overloaded they cycle i try not to add more than a 1/4 cup per gallon at a time. Like I feel its dicy to add a pint per 10 gallon at a time
Biostratum is a lot like ecocomplete. Your cycle didnt crash, thats just some organics included in biostratum rotting away for the “bio” in biostratum to churn and thus, fulfill the claims biostratum makes.
Did you notice that biostratum had a lot of water in it when you added it? Thats the rotting organics and different strains of beneficial bacteria that biostratum says it has. Ecocomplete has it too.
Honestly id give it a day or two, maybe 5 at most and check the parameters again. Should be 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites since that. You didn’t do anything wrong, just biostratum doing what it says its supposed to do