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By Jay at 2007-11-16 14:23
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Cycling your aquarium - A non-technical explanation
I. Patience is the key!
The beginner is usually excited and eager to have their fish tank up and running with fish as soon as possible. Local fish store employees often encourage this rush by giving the new hobbyist inadequate advice about how to get started, they are understandably more interested in the sale, or truly do not understand what needs to be done. Garages and attics are full of abandoned aquarium equipment from frustrated folks who never got off to a good start and who rushed into things had one disaster after another and quit.
II. Cycling the Tank
Other than your initial equipment purchases, Cycling the tank is the single most important beginning step.
Simply put, cycling is the process of growing two different bacterial colonies, without which we could never keep fish in the aquarium water. These bacteria are always present in our environment; they are good guys and are no threat to us. They will find their way into the aquarium water.
Fish produce waste...solid material and urea (ammonia) excreted thru the gills. Fish food decomposing on the bottom of the tank also produces ammonia. Ammonia is extremely toxic to fish even in very small amounts (it burns gill tissue and body tissue resulting in death). How small of an amount?...Toxic levels are measured in parts per million. The acceptable level of ammonia in an aquarium is 0 parts per million.
Our first beneficial bacterial colony (I'm not going to use scientific names....you can research that) actually feeds on ammonia in the water...however, this is a fairly complex operation and I do not intend to go into depth here...trust it to be so, and that they do an outstanding job. Colonies of these bacteria will reduce ammonia almost as quickly as the fish generates it. Establishing colonies in the aquarium in sufficient numbers to be effective can take 3 - 4 weeks. (See Patience above)
This first colony eliminates toxic ammonia from our closed ecological system. The byproduct (waste produced) from feeding on the ammonia) is a chemical called NitrIte. Nitrite is also toxic to fish in very small quantities.
Enter our second colony of beneficial bacteria. These bacteria exist in nature just like the first, except they feed on nitrites. They will consume nitrites almost as fast as they are produced by the ammonia colony. The acceptable amount of nitrite in an aquarium is 0 parts per million. Establishing colonies of nitrite consuming bacteria can take 3 to 4 weeks. Again, see Patience is the Key! above.
Our second colony, which consumes nitrites, gives off a chemical called NitrAte as waste. NitrAte is not really very toxic except in very high concentrations. Caution: nitrate levels are a snake oil opportunity for increased sales at the local fish store. Buy this chemical, this device etc. etc. A good routine of regular water changes will keep your nitrate levels acceptable. I also might as well say that there are lots of ways to spend your money on stuff to deal with your ammonia/nitrite problems. Get my drift?
Get it?....NitrAte vs. NitrIte easy to confuse!
There is no way around this, if these colonies are not established or fail your fish will die, end of story. Look for the forum posts like this? ?My tank has been fine for two weeks and I woke up this morning and my fish are dieing or dead, what can I do??
III. Growing the Colonies
Cycling the tank requires that you start with a source of ammonia (a fish) to entice the ammonia eating bacteria to grow a colony. The colony will grow only up to the point that there is a food source for it. Simply put, an aquarium with one zebra diano in it will only grow a colony big enough to deal with the ammonia waste of that one fish, and it will take 3-4 weeks to do it. This is true of both the necessary bacteria colonies. This is very often overlooked and there is a glaring lesson to be had here. If you cycle your tank with lets say two fish, and at the end of the 4 weeks have 0 readings for nitrite and ammonia and say oh boy! I can put in the ten more fish I want; chances are a lot of those fish will die because you have only grown a bio-filter large enough to deal with 2 fish.
There is a lot of myth and misinformation about bacteria colonies. They attach themselves to everything, gravel, glass, ornaments, filter equipment?everything! They are Not free floating, they do not get tossed out with water changes or vacuuming the gravel. You can buy media to grow colonies on to keep in your filter box, or canister filter. I keep some ceramic stars in my canister filter (been there for years) never changed. The important thing here is that if you loose your bio-filter by throwing out your dirty filter material, you have not cycled your tank properly, and are at risk of losing fish do to toxic ammonia or nitrite. Keep in mind a tank can be cycled without the use of a filter.
The use of fish as an ammonia source to start the nitrogen cycle has been almost abandoned by serious hobbyist. It clearly kills or permanently harms a lot of livestock used to start up a tank. NO fish and the addition of pure ammonia to the empty tank will begin the cycle, often faster than a few fish.
The rest of the article on fish less cycling to follow
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