Is my water ok?

+1 to the LR. I trust you on the Salmonella thing, I have just not heard of it from a home aquarium. I heard of people being hospitalized from contact with zoas though.

 

I'd wager that eating food/using a public bathroom/having a dog/lizard etc are much more likely to cause a salmonella disease than using 1 raw shrimp to cycle a tank! Everything you do on a daily basis has that risk! granted, i do agree tht you should keep young children out of the aquarium during and after cycling! regardless of how its done!

 

Good luck with keeping young children out my friend. You haven't meant my two little ones yet lol. On a side note though, they have been arm deep in my FW and SW tanks with no health problems, knock on wood. ;D

Sorry for hijacking the thread.

 

yeah I'm thinking i got lucky with my boy! he's 7 and i got this tank to teach him how to take care of things! he knows hes not allowed to touch the aquarium without daddy! so far so good! knock on wood!

And ditto on the apology!

 

+1 I wish I can go back to the very beginning with all of today's equipment like LED setups and fancy overflow/sump designs.

 

I never used fish nor dead shrimp and my tank was fully cycled within 4 weeks. I used dry Pukani and pink aragonite. Neither one with any living bacteria.

I cooked (cured) my rock for 2 weeks in a covered bin. Added it to my tank. Seeded it with, SeaChem Stability for 2 weeks. Added all my corals, fish and inverts from my 8g. Never had an ammonia spike.

 

+! Plenty of options that don't require living critters! The more the merrier!