How to Cycle an Aquarium !
Chapter 1: What is Cycling an Aquarium
If you want to add fish to an aquarium, you should cycle your aquarium. If you don’t cycle your aquarium, your fish have a high chance of dying! So, what is cycling an aquarium anyway? When a fish produces waste, ammonia builds up. Ammonia is poisonous to your fish. With a cycled aquarium, ammonia gets transferred into nitrite, which then gets transferred into nitrate. Nitrite and nitrate are still poisonous but nitrate are less poisonous to your fish. A cycled aquarium has no ammonia and no nitrite. The ammonia and nitrite get transferred to nitrate in a short amount of time. The reason this happens is because of the good bacteria on the filters, sand, plants, and almost everything!
Chapter 2: How to Cycle Your Aquarium
You may be asking, so how do I “cycle my aquarium”? First, fill your tank with substrate, decor, and filters (it is O.K. to cycle an aquarium with only water and a filter). Good bacteria lives on filters, but other surfaces also. Before you start cycling your tank, you will need: -API Freshwater Master Test Kit, OR Aquarium Co-op Multi and Ammonia Test Strips -Dr. Tims Aquatics Ammonium Chloride (ammonia source)(optional) -Fritz Zyme Turbo Start 700 Freshwater (optional) -API Quick Start (optional) -Seachem Prime. Once you have everything ready, it is time to add water to your aquarium. To cycle an aquarium, you need to have an ammonia source. To do that, you can add ammonia from the Dr. Tims Aquatics Ammonium Chloride or use a natural source. A natural source would include decaying fish, decaying plants, live fish, snails, shrimp, and almost anything that lives or has lived in an aquarium. Next, test your ammonia with either the API Master Test Kit or the Aquarium Co-op Ammonia Test Strips. If it reads 2ppm (parts per million) of ammonia, stop dosing ammonia for the day. Wait 24 hours and retest ammonia with the API Master Test Kit or the Aquarium Co-op Ammonia Test Strips. If ammonia is still at 2, wait another 24 hours and repeat the process. Eventually, after you add ammonia, it will start building beneficial bacteria in the tank. When there is enough beneficial bacteria, the ammonia will transfer to nitrite and then to nitrate. Keep adding the right amount of ammonia every day. A typical aquarium needs to be dosed about 2 ppm (parts per million) of ammonia every 24 hours. If you test your water parameters the day after you add ammonia and there is no ammonia, then test nitrite and keep adding ammonia. if you test the water parameters and there is no ammonia or nitrite, then your tank is cycled. Test your nitrate and see how much of a water change you should do. Don’t do water change after water change without waiting some time between the water changes. Try not to do water changes during the cycling process either. These will have a chance to make your cycle crash. When your cycle crashes, you have to cycle your aquarium again. The process of cycling an aquarium should take 3 weeks to 3 months.
Chapter 3: How to Speed Up the Cycling Process
If you think 3 weeks to 3 months is a long time, there are ways to speed up the cycling process. If you already have a cycled tank, you can put one of the filters from the cycled tank into the uncycled tank. Another way to get an already cycled filter is to buy one online. Also, natural things, such as plants and fish, tend to speed up the process. There’s not a lot of ways to speed up the process of cycling an aquarium, but those were some ways that I found useful!
Chapter 4: Thanks!
Thanks for reading these cycling tips! Cycling a tank is not as hard as it may seem, and in the end, its worth the wait. Happy fish keeping!