Much of what makes your tank safe are the
bacteria that carry out the Nitrogen Cycle?
Without these bacteria, ammonia
waste from fish and uneaten food
would make the tank lethal to your critters.
If you are starting a new aquarium
and want to add fish with as
little stress as possible, adding bacteria such as
Seachem's Stability (freshwater and saltwater) ,
Tetra's SafeStart (freshwater) or Instant Ocean's Bio-Spira (saltwater)
can make the tank fish-safe from the beginning.
(Note: this does NOT mean you
can fully stock your tank from DAY 1.)
  
Also, be sure you have a good filter for these bacteria to live on/in
so they can reproduce and keep up with the fish load.
These bacterial additives are also great for
ammonia emergencies in already established tanks.
The Nitrogen Cycle
Ammonia -> Nitrite -> Nitrate
Fish create waste in the form of ammonia. Ammonia also
enters the tank through uneaten food that is left to rot. This ammonia
is toxic to the fish. In order to make the aquarium environment safe
for the fish, a stable biological filter must be established.
A biological filter is some large porous surface area that is
colonized by nitrifying bacteria and is exposed to high levels of
oxygen. Examples of materials that serve as biological filters
are porous rock (live rock), filter cartridge media, a biowheel, or
bio-balls in a wet dry filter or canister filter.
In the biological filter, ammonia is first
converted by bacteria into nitrite. Like ammonia, nitrite is
highly toxic to fish at low levels and must be quickly converted
into
nitrate, which is relatively harmless to the fish at low
concentrations.
Starting Your Tank Cycle
To begin the Nitrogen cycle livestock must
be added to the aquarium to introduce ammonia. However, you
should first allow the tank to run for a few
days to a week to allow the temperature to regulate. You
may add a tiny bit of food and bacterial supplements such as
Safe Start (freshwater) or Bio-Spira (saltwater)
at this time, but be sure to put in a bit of food so the bacteria
have something to eat. If you have a saltwater tank, live rock
and live sand may be added at the very beginning to add both food
and bacteria.
Before you add fish to your tank,
CHECK THE AMMONIA LEVEL. If there is ANY ammonia
present, DO NOT ADD FISH. Adding fish when there is ammonia in
the tank can be catastrophic. Fish that have not been in a
tank with ammonia that are put into a tank that has ammonia
typically do not fare well even if acclimated slowly.
If a fish dies, it will further raise the ammonia, causing the other
fish to die.
The initial biological cycling of a tank,
or "New Tank Syndrome," generally
takes six to ten weeks to complete. The process is very
similar in both salt and freshwater aquariums. In the case of
saltwater aquariums, the Nitrogen Cycle may be sped up a bit by
adding live rock or live sand to the tank. This
does not eliminate the cycle, it simply makes it safer for the
first fish early on.
The first fish you add should be hardy. If you need help
choosing hardy fish, NorthSide can help you select some.
NorthSide Aquatics recommends only purchasing fish that you wish to
keep in your aquarium. We do not sell "flushable" or
"expendable" fish.
It is important to add fish slowly, even after the tank has cycled
biologically. The more fish waste that is added to the system,
the more ammonia that must be converted. In order to keep up
with this additional ammonia the bacteria must increase their
population to support the tank. This takes time. Do not
try to rush this process.
My aquarium has been set up for
years. How is it possible that I have New Tank Syndrome?
Many people believe that once a tank has been
up and running that it can no longer be affected by New Tank
Syndrome, but this is not necessarily the case. Nitrifying
bacteria that are responsible for the Nitrogen Cycle are not
indestructible. If you wipe them out, then you are starting
from scratch.
At NorthSide Aquatics, we often get questions about mysterious fish
deaths following an aquarium cleaning. When properly cleaned,
an aquarium should not have a serious disruption to the nitrifying
Bacteria. However, certain practices are extremely destructive
and should be avoided.
One of these practices, which we find most commonly with
customers who have freshwater aquariums, is the complete emptying of
the aquarium including gravel, decorations, and filter for the
purpose of sterilization through bleaching or drying of the
components. By following this type of process, the aquarium
owner is essentially destroying the biological filter. Within
a very short time of reassembling the aquarium, the aquarium will
have high ammonia and fish will start to die. By performing
such a radical operation, you have started your biological cycle
over from the beginning.
Instead of emptying the tank, use a good quality siphon hose style
gravel cleaning mechanism, such as a Python, that attaches to the
sink to create a good suction. This apparatus will lift the
waste out of the gravel and leave most of your bacteria intact.
(Note: Do not vacuum gravel in a saltwater tank.) To
return fresh water to the tank, reverse the flow of the water at the
faucet and you're done. Just be sure to add a dechlorinator to
the aquarium prior to refilling as chlorine can also nuke your
bacteria.
Many antibiotic treatments also are harmful to the bacteria that
perform the Nitrification process. Be sure to read labels
carefully as many medications specify when they might harm your good
bacteria. If you must use a medication that kills Nitrifying
bacteria, be sure to monitor ammonia levels carefully.
NorthSide recommends treating sick fish in a small quarantine tank
(when appropriate) so that water may be changed out to help keep the
ammonia down. This also keeps your main aquarium from being
harmed.
Can I use products to neutralize
ammonia?
This is a tricky question to answer
because pH plays a critical role in the neutralization of ammonia.
For freshwater aquaria with a relatively neutral pH or lower, water
conditioners such as Prime by Seachem can be used to neutralize
ammonia. This happens by adding a hydrogen atom to ammonia
(NH3) making it into ammonium (NH4). Most test kits cannot
distinguish between these two molecules, so even if ammonia has been
neutralized, it can show up on your test kit.
Saltwater aquariums are a different story. While adding an
ammonia neutralizer to the water would not do harm, it is
questionable as to how effective such a treatment would be due to
the high pH of most saltwater systems. High pH easily breaks
off the extra hydrogen atom from ammonium (NH4), converting it back
into ammonia (NH3).
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