Step One:
Cycling
If you ask a pet store employee if you can
have fish right away after setting up a tank, a good employee
will tell you yes. A nice fish lover will tell you that you need
to cycle the tank, or you will be coming back to get more doomed
fish soon.
The cycle is when an aquarium is readied
to support life. An newly setup aquarium is incapable of supporting
any kind of life, as it does not have the correct bacteria and
such in place to convert waste into less harmful forms. This change
is a constant cycle in an aquarium, but the first time is the
important one.

There are two ways to cycle a tank. Most other
ways are just variations on these two. The first is fishless cycling,
and the second is cycling with fish.
Fishless Cycling
Materials:
-
Clear
Ammonia (should not foam, or have colors or dyes added)
-
Ammonia,
Nitrite and Nitrate Test kits
-
Tank,
fully setup, but with no animals in it.
- If you can decorations, gravel, or filter media
from an already cycled tank
- If
you are going to keep live plants, add them now. They will speed
the cycle.
Time:
From 9 days-3 weeks
The
first step is to add ammonia to the tank. Add enough that the
test kit measures ~ 5 ppm. Remember how much you had to add to
get that amount, as ammonia comes in very different concentrations.
Add the same amount every day. After 3-4 days begin testing for
Nitrite, but continue adding Ammonia.
When
nitrite appears wait for it to spike, i.e. no Ammonia 24 hours
after adding it, but tons of Nitrite. Cut the Ammonia dosage by
half and begin testing for Nitrate. It takes longer for Nitrate
to appear than Nitrite. When Nitrate appears Nitrite should disappear.
After
you have Nitrate, test carefully to make sure all Ammonia you
add gets converted, then do a massive water change with properly
treated water. (Treated water is water with a de-chlorinator added
so that you will not lose the effort you just made due to chlorine
or chloramine in tap water. ) Now add fish. You can normally nearly
fully stock the fish tank now that it is cycled, just stop adding
ammonia when you add fish, and make sure there is no ammonia or
nitrite present before you add them.
Cycling with Fish (Traditional Cycling)
Materials:
Time: 4-6 weeks
Add several fish you do not care for, as they
will often be very damaged by the cycling. Common choices are
danios, or feeder goldfish.
Test the water, and when Ammonia begins to appear,
start your water changes. You want to keep the ammonia as low
as possible, because ammonia kills fish. The main reason this
method takes so long is the water changes that continue to dilute
the ammonia and keep the fish alive. The water will slowly go
through the same cycle as in Fishless, but don't forget that Nitrite
is also very poisonous to fish, and that level needs to be kept
very low as well.
Once you get Nitrate, your cycle is done. Do a
large water change to lower the Nitrate level. Now you can return
the fish you used to cycle, and get only as many fish as you returned.
Or you can add a few fish every few weeks because the bacteria
only grew enough to process so much fish waste, so more than its
expected amount would just start the cycle again.
Links
to other Fishless Cycling articles...
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