Introduction

If you’re a fishkeeper, you know that keeping an aquarium can be a lot of work. There’s cleaning, feeding, and monitoring the water quality of your fish tank. But there’s one thing that many people don’t realize: cycling an aquarium is actually part of the process! In this guide, we’ll discuss how to cycle your fish tank using both traditional methods and newer techniques like fishless cycling. By learning how to cycle an aquarium properly, you’ll be able to keep your water healthy and your fish thriving for years!

The water cycle in your aquarium

The water cycle in your aquarium is the most important thing you can monitor. This encompasses everything from monitoring the pH of your water, to checking for nitrates and ammonia levels, to ensuring that you’re keeping your filter clean and bacteria-free.

The more you know about how to keep water quality high for your fish, the better off they’ll be. If you have questions about how to cycle an aquarium or how to clean one out at all, we’ve got answers below!

Ammonia

Ammonia is a toxic waste product that is produced when fish excrete nitrogen. When ammonia levels are high, it can be harmful to fish and can even kill them. Fortunately, there are filters available to remove the ammonia from your water (which we’ll discuss in a later section).

Nitrites

Nitrites are another by-product of ammonia. When there is too much ammonia in your tank, it will convert to nitrites. Once this happens, you need to begin treating the water with a product called Stress Zyme. The product will help convert these toxic substances into beneficial ones that don’t harm fish or plants.

As with ammonia, if you do not remove enough nitrites from an aquarium environment before they reach high levels (typically above 10 ppm), they can be harmful to your fish and plants as well. However, even when levels stay below 10 ppm (or 0 mg/L) but are present over time without being removed on a regular basis through proper maintenance practices such as cleaning filters and changing water regularly (about 50% weekly), they may still have adverse effects on your aquatic inhabitants’ health due their toxicity at low levels

Nitrates

Nitrates are the end product of nitrogen cycling, and they’re a natural part of the aquarium ecosystem. In fact, they’re not harmful to fish at all! The problem comes when you have too many nitrates in your tank. It’s important to monitor their levels and test them regularly so that you can catch any rise before it becomes an issue. Nitrate tests are cheap and easy to use; just follow the directions on your kit carefully so that you get accurate results every time.

How the nitrogen cycle works in your fish tank

The nitrogen cycle is the chemical process that converts toxic ammonia into nitrites, then nitrites into nitrates. This is essential because it makes the water safe for fish. The nitrogen cycle begins when you put fish inside your aquarium. At first, there are few bacteria on the surface of plants and all other surfaces in your aquarium to help break down this waste. But as more and more fish excrete ammonia from their gills, waste builds up in their environment. Ammonia is a harmful substance to these aquatic creatures because it can make them sick—even kill them!

To prevent this from happening, beneficial bacteria take up residence on plant leaves and other surfaces throughout your tank as well as within filter media such as sponges or cartridges (cartridges are reusable). These bacteria also absorb oxygen from water during photosynthesis so they can work harder to break down ammonia into nitrite and then into nitrate which will eventually become part of harmless compounds dissolved in aquarium water called “dissolved organic compounds” or DOCs (see figure below).

Cycling a new aquarium — fishless and with fish

It takes time for an aquarium to become healthy enough to support fish. The process is called cycling, and before you add any creatures, it’s important to cycle your tank properly so that it can handle the load of living organisms.

You have two options: fishless cycling, which involves adding ammonia and nitrite-eating bacteria into your tank; or traditional cycling with live fish already in place (or coming later). Both methods are valid choices, but there are pros and cons to each method when starting out with a brand new aquarium.

You should clean up your tank before you start putting things inside it! First, remove any dirt or debris from inside the tank using an old toothbrush (or something similar). Then wipe down all surfaces including all sides of glass doors/windows, walls around water level (where light enters), edges around bottom where gravel goes up against side wall(s) — basically anything that touches water needs cleaning too! Use hot water from faucet along with soap if necessary–you can use any kind of soap here since we’re not worried about chemicals interacting poorly yet since nothing lives inside yet…except maybe some algae spores 🙂

Fishless cycling

Now that we’ve covered the basics of how to cycle an aquarium, let’s talk about cycling without fish.

It’s actually pretty simple:

• You need some sort of filter (if you don’t already have one)
• You have to do regular water changes every week or so until the tank is cycled
• You’ll have to do weekly water tests and make sure your levels are stable throughout this process.

Cycling using fish

I know, you want to jump right in with your new fishy friends. Who doesn’t love a newborn? But cycling an aquarium is best done with algae or bacteria growing on the tank walls. When you introduce fish into the tank, they eat down all that beneficial slime until there are no more nutrients left for ammonia or nitrite. Then they die of starvation (or get sick from toxins).

To start your cycle off right, follow these steps:

• Fill your aquarium with water and add ammonia to trigger the growth of nitrifying bacteria
• Use an automatic water pump to circulate the water at least once every 12 hours over 24 hours. If possible, use an air stone attached via hose to a timer so that it bubbles for about 8 minutes every hour for 24 hours straight until you have oxygenating bacteria present in your aquarium as well
• Add gravel from another healthy tank (yes, most pet stores have “cycled” tanks full of dead fish). This will contain some good microbes along with enough food for them so that when added into yours it can quickly jumpstart things

Managing how you cycle an aquarium will keep your water healthy and your fish thriving.

Managing how you cycle an aquarium will keep your water healthy and your fish thriving. Cycling is a process that occurs when bacteria in the aquarium’s filter break down ammonia into nitrites, which then become nitrates through the process of nitrification.

The nitrogen cycle starts with ammonia being introduced into the tank from fish waste or even plants (if you’re using live plants). Ammonia is toxic to fish because it causes gill damage, but beneficial bacteria convert it into less-toxic nitrites. Nitrite converts back into more-toxic nitrate, which can be removed from the water with regular partial water changes.

Conclusion

If you want to keep your fish healthy and your tank clean, you need to know how the nitrogen cycle works. It’s important because it keeps your water clean by removing waste like ammonia and nitrites from fish tanks. Ammonia is produced when uneaten food breaks down in a tank or pond, while nitrites are generated when ammonia breaks down further into nitrates. Nitrates can be toxic if they build up too high in an aquarium or pond, so it’s important to keep them low by doing regular water changes.