In order to cycle your tank, you will need to add ammonia. So, can you cycle your aquarium with Cheery Shrimps? You can find out in this article from Aquarium Blueprints.
Quick Summary
We don’t recommend using Cherry Shrimps to cycle a tank. These inverts are extremely fragile and will most likely won’t survive the cycling when exposed to small traces of ammonia and nitrites.
Not to mention that a single shrimp has a low bioload, which means that you will have a harder time trying to build up the beneficial bacteria colonies in your aquarium.
If you do decide to cycle a tank with Cherry Shrimps, then we recommend doing water changes, adding Seachem Prime, dosing Aquavitro Seed and adding a pinch of shrimp food daily to get your aquarium safely cycled as soon as possible.
How to cycle a tank
In order to cycle a tank, you need to build up enough beneficial bacteria in order to keep both ammonia and nitrites to 0 ppm.
The beneficial bacteria colonies that consume ammonia and nitrites will appear naturally in your tank water. With that said, they will need organic wastes in order to survive and reproduce.
The organic wastes will decompose and break down into ammonia. A naturally occurring bacteria in your tank will convert the ammonia into nitrite. A different bacteria type living in your tank will then convert the nitrite into nitrate.
There is actually another bacteria colony that will remove nitrates in your tank. To grow this specialized bacteria type, you will need a deep substrate of at least 2 inches or use a specialized biological filter media (like the Biohome Ultimate or Seachem Matrix).
Cherry Shrimps will naturally produce organic wastes in your tank.
Can you use Cherry Shrimps to cycle a tank?
We highlight recommend that you do not use Cherry Shrimps to cycle a tank.
The main issue with using these inverts is that they are extremely sensitive. So, if you keep them in an uncycled tank, then they will likely end up perishing as spikes in ammonia and nitrites are extremely toxic.
Furthermore, a single Cherry Shrimp has very low bioload. This means that you most likely won’t get enough organic wastes to build up and sustain your beneficial bacteria colonies unless you add a bunch of shrimps to your tank.
There is actually a way to cycle your tank with Cherry Shrimps. In order to do so, you need to do small, daily water changes of no more than 20% in addition to using Seachem Prime every day to detoxify the ammonia and nitrites.
We also suggest live beneficial bacteria product such as Aquavitro Seed to cycle the tank as soon as possible. Along with the Cherry Shrimps, you should also add a pinch of shrimp food daily to make sure you are producing enough ammonia to sustain your growing beneficial bacteria colonies.
Of course, you can also do a fish-less and shrimp-less cycle, which we highly recommend as you won’t harm your Cherry Shrimps and other aquatic pets during the process. To see how to properly do so, you can check out this quick tank cycling guide.