Cycling an Aquarium

Aquarium Setup - Fishless cycling the tank.
One may be very excited with the aquarium setup and then add fish immediately to the tank. Stop and read the following before doing so. One needs to go through the following important step.

Before adding fish to the tank, the tank needs to be cycled. Cycling an aquarium is a process where good bacteria are established in the tank. This can take anywhere from a week to about 1-1/2 months. It is safer to have patience.If this is not done, the fish may die rapidly and one may give up the fish keeping hobby altogether.

Aquarium Setup. Process occurring in aquarium.

1. Fish wastes and uneaten fish food get converted to ammonia. Ammonia is harmful to the fish and burns the gills of the fish. Due to this fish cannot absorb oxygen easily.
2. Ammonia eating bacteria convert the ammonia to nitrite.
Nitrite is harmful to the fish. Though not as much as ammonia.
3. Nitrite eating bacteria converts this to nitrate. Nitrate in concentrations of upto 20ppm is not harmful to most fish.
4. If live plants are present in the aquarium, these consume the nitrate and keep this concentration down.

Aquarium Setup - Starting a cycle
Add a source of ammonia.
- This could be from a frozen prawn kept in stocking within aquarium.
- Get a pure source of ammonia. Janitorial strength. This is typically the non sudsing kind. On shaking the bottle there should be no foam. I hunted high a low and could not find this.
- Alternatively use urine. This may gross out many people but this is a good source of ammonia, it is sterile and free. I used this technique and successfully setup my aquarium.

Aquarium Setup - Monitoring the cycle
- Raise temperature of aquarium to 86 degrees F. Bacteria grow faster in this temperature range.
- Check ammonia levels each day. These should not exceed 2 to 3 ppm. Any reading above 5 ppm will slow down the process of setting the biological filter. When this level goes down, add more ammonia (see above). Need to keep the bacteria fed or the population dies off.
- In a few days there will be high levels of nitrite.
- This will eventually turn to 0ppm
- At this stage you may get a reading of nitrate based on whether you have live plants or not.

An aquarium is fully cycled when:
- Ammonia readings are 0ppm.
- Nitrite readings are 0ppm.
- Nitrate reading between 0 to 20 ppm.

If nitrate are any higher, do a large water change bring these levels close to 0ppm.

I have not had much success with Prime or other chemicals claiming to cycle the tank quickly.

Aquarium Setup - Adding Fish

Add fish slowly to the aquarium. Start by adding about 3 to 4 each week till tank is fully stocked.

Add fish by the 1 inch of fully grown fish to 1 gallon of tank water. This is to prevent over crowding and have healthy fish.