[Cajun]

I am currently cycling a 75 gallon RR tank with a 25 gal sump using 6 jumbo shrimp along with approx. 50lbs of Fiji rock that was given to me after being left outside in a pile for a few yrs. I did add Cycle and BioZyme to the tank like I have done with previous tanks while cycling. Needless to say, the smell in the house has got quite severe. Is this too many shrimp to provide an ammonia source? . I used uncured LR to cycle my last tank, but am new to using shrimp as a ammonia source.
Cajun

[Arctic Fox]

I did the same thing with my tank in the beginning, and the smell got really bad just like yours, Ammonia went up and stayed up, so I just bought a bunch of scented candles and kept them lit all the time. I didn't have any luck with any of those liquid bacteria bottles so I went to the pet store and bought a yellow tailed damsel and asked if I could have a handful of sand from one of their tanks, in about 3 days Ammonia went back down and lil fishy was seriously pissed off at me but at least the smell was gone. So yeah, I'd see if you can't get some seed sand, or just one live rock from a pet store or something. I think the bacteria in those cycle products sits on the shelf too long or something because I've never had any luck with em, (or I'm just under-dosing) I dunno

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Cajun

I am currently cycling a 75 gallon RR tank with a 25 gal sump using 6 jumbo shrimp along with approx. 50lbs of Fiji rock that was given to me after being left outside in a pile for a few yrs. I did add Cycle and BioZyme to the tank like I have done with previous tanks while cycling. Needless to say, the smell in the house has got quite severe. Is this too many shrimp to provide an ammonia source? . I used uncured LR to cycle my last tank, but am new to using shrimp as a ammonia source.
Cajun

Yes, you are using too many shrimp. I would remove all of them at this point but you might choose to leave 1/2 a shrimp if you want to.

I don't know where this method got confused but it was intended as a method of starting the cycle on a tank WITHOUT live rock. If you are using live rock, there is no need to employ the shrimp. If all of your live rock was completely cured and it was out of the water for less than an hour (from one tank to another), then you might want to add a small shrimp or two to help kick it up a notch, as Emeril would say, but it's really not necessary.

P.S. -- You really don't need any of those commercial products either. The truth is that the tank will cycle just fine with or without them. I used a small piece of raw fish when I started my tank ONLY because I was starting without any live rock at that point, just dead Southdown sand. I added my live rock on the 10th. day after the sandstorm had subsided. I wanted to get things moving, which is why I threw in the piece of fish but it wasn't really necessary, just something I wanted to do.