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 Understanding the nitrogen cycle and its importance to a healthy tank is imperative for the serious fish-keeping hobbyist. The nitrogen cycle in your tank occurs constantly - it reflects how efficiently waste is broken down in your fish tank. In this article, we discuss how the nitrogen cycle helps clear tank water of metabolic wastes and why the maturation period matters with new tanks. We will also cover how to kick-start a new tank's cycle, how to check your tank's nitrogen cycle and how to improve your tank's nitrogen cycling in general.

How the Nitrogen Cycle Helps Recycle Metabolic Wastes

 In nature, when animals expel their wastes and plants decay, anaerobic bacteria in the environment break down waste to harmless nitrogen that is released into the air through the ground and water. If nature did not have some mechanism for using the "waste" material, eventually, we would run out of good stuff. Luckily, through the participation of bacteria using these waste substances, harmful materials (to animals) like ammonia are converted into something harmless and useable again. Two kinds of bacteria participate in this cycle: Nitrite Bacteria (Nitrosomonas) and Nitrate Bacteria (Nitrobacteria). This process of breaking down animal wastes is called Nitrification.

 In Nitrification, we have:

 Animal waste (ammonia) is converted by Nitrosomonas → Nitrites is converted by Nitrobacteria to → Nitrates

What Happens When You Keep Fish In Tanks?

 Out of fish waste, the chemical we worry about most in a tank is ammonia since it is most toxic of the metabolic byproducts to fish. In the tank, without proper filtration, the ammonia level accumulates in the water, building up to toxic levels eventually killing the fish. Besides the ammonia level, the actual level of debris would also reach a critical mass rendering the water unlivable for inhabitants. Fish live in water and not mud!

 The process of clearing aquarium water of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate is a major goal of biological filtration; the other two main aims of tank filtration being mechanical filtration and chemical filtration. Setting up tank equipment to facilitate biological filtration (i.e. nitrification) is paramount to establishing a healthy tank.

Why the Maturation Period Matters to the Nitrogen Cycle

 The funny thing about the nitrogen cycle is you have a bit of "What came first, the chicken or the egg" going on. To get the nitrogen cycle established, you must have enough ammonia in the tank to get bacteria levels up high enough to take care of the fish' waste. If bacteria levels are not high enough to meet the output levels of fish introduced in the tank, fish will have a hard time surviving in the water until bacterial levels catches up. Establishing the balance challenges every owner of a new tank, even experienced fish-keepers. When new hobbyists jump the gun and put their fish in before their bacteria levels are high enough, they will unfortunately experience "New Tank Syndrome." New Tank Syndrome is when fish, recently introduced to a new tank, die off due to high levels of ammonia, nitrates and nitrites in the water before sufficient bacteria levels were established. Before you can safely introduce fish to a new tank, the tank must be "Cycled".

 To cycle a tank, you need to add a form of ammonia and a "starter" colony of bacteria to the water. The old school way to cycle a tank would be to introduce the hardiest fish you could find. This method is bad because you end up sacrificing the "starter" fish since the biological filter will not get established fast enough to clear the water of ammonia levels for those fish. When nitrite levels remain at zero for a week, the tank is considered matured and ready for live inhabitants. Normally, the nitrogen cycle takes two to six weeks to establish in a new tank. Rarely do new fish hobbyists wait two to six weeks to fill their tanks!

How To Kick-Start Your Nitrogen Cycle In a New Tank

 In general, you can cycle a new tank without sacrificing starter fish. You need an ammonia source and a bacteria source. This webpage has a good article on fishless cycling: http://www.aquariumsecrets.com/Fishless.htm in general. To "seed" your tank, you could try any of the following ways:

• 1) If you can get established tank water you know is free of parasites, etc., to start cycling the tank.
  
   
• 2) Introduce live rock to your tank first before your fish; live rock should produce enough waste material to get the bacteria going. If you want more information on using live rock, check out this page: http://wetwebmedia.com/estbiofiltmar.htm
  
   
• 3) Another method of cycling a tank is by putting in fish food without fish! Fish food will eventually decay resulting in the much desired ammonia. This page discusses going this route: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/lrstudiesfj.htm
  
   
• 4) You can also seed the tank with pure ammonia. Add ammonia directly to the tank and let the bacteria bloom in respond. These websites discuss going this route:
  
  
  • a. http://www.algone.com/fishless_cycling.htm talks about using pure ammonia
  • b. http://www.wetwebmedia.com/lrstudiesfj.htm talks about fishless cycling using pure ammonia with a good discussion on it

 Products on the market can help you mature your tank but they are not necessary. These products include:

• Nutrafin's Cycle ($6.29 for 8 ounce bottle from Drs. Foster and Smith).
• Bio-Spira from MarineLand costs $18.99 but requires overnight shipping (available locally and online from AquariumPlants.com).