Can Aquarium Cycling Save Your Fish?

One of the biggest problems that new aquarium owners face is the sudden loss of fish life in a tank that is under two months old. Sometimes this is called "new tank syndrome", but what is probably happening is that the aquarium biological filter is not ready to do its job of filtering out all of the ammonia that your fish are producing. The answer to this problem is something called aquarium cycling. This allows your aquarium filter to start producing a good bacteria which will start the process of turning this harmful ammonia into benign nitrate.

How to Cycle Your Tank

The first thing you will have to decide is what kind of fish you are going to keep. Some places say that you should cycle the tank using goldfish, but do not do that unless you are going to keep them. Choose a strong fish that you are planning on having in your aquarium. White Clouds or Zebra Danios are good suggestions, and remember that the guys and gals at your local pet store could help you choose. Buy a few, not too many, and introduce them into the tank. Too many fish will cause problems with excess food decaying, foul smelling water and other preventable water problems.

One next thing that you will want to do is to change some of the water in the aquarium tank.  A good amount should be about 10 to 15% of the volume of water in the tank.  What you should do now is to take a sample of the water and test it.  You can do this by either purchasing a water test kit or take a sample of the water to your local pet store and have them test it.  You should start to see an increase in ammonia levels and possibly a bit of nitrite.  If the water test is negative, give it some more time as this process can take as long as eight weeks to complete.  After about eight weeks, you should see that the ammonia and nitrite level have dropped to trace levels.

Once everything looks good, you can go ahead and add some more fish.  However, be careful not to add too many fish as this will stress your filter even more, and you may have to go through the cycling process again.  Make sure that the water you originally put into the fish tank was treated to get rid of chlorine and chloramine. You should not have to use any chemicals in the water, and make sure that you change the water regularly.

Aquarium cycling is a very important thing to do to make sure that your fish start out their life in their new aquatic home with the best chance of survival and the ability to thrive.  Don't forget this important step in your fish will love you for it.