By Cichlid dude at http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090402233249AAdp1hP
Ammonia is introduced into the aquarium via fish waste and uneaten food. The fish waste and excess food will break down into either ionized ammonium (NH4) or un-ionized ammonia (NH3). Ammonium is not harmful to tropical fish but ammonia is. Whether the material turns into ammonium or ammonia depends on the ph level of the water. If the ph is under 7, you will have ammonium. If the ph is 7 or higher you will have ammonia.
Stage 2
Soon, bacteria called nitrosomonas will develop and they will oxidize the ammonia in the tank, essentially eliminating it. The byproduct of ammonia oxidation is Nitrites. So we no longer have ammonia in the tank, but we now have another toxin to deal with - Nitrites. Nitrites are just as toxic to tropical fish as ammonia. If you have a test kit, you should be able to see the nitrite levels rise around the end of the first or second week.
Stage 3
Bacteria called nitrobacter will develop and they will convert the nitrites into nitrates. Nitrates are not as harmful to tropical fish as ammonia or nitrites, but nitrate is still harmful in large amounts. The quickest way to rid your aquarium of nitrates is to perform partial water changes. Once your tank is established you will need to monitor your tank water for high nitrate levels and perform partial water changes as necessary. There are other methods to control nitrates in aquariums besides water changes. For freshwater fish tanks, live aquarium plants will use up some of the nitrates. In saltwater fish tanks, live rock and deep sand beds can have anaerobic areas where denitrifying bacteria can breakdown nitrates into harmless nitrogen gas that escapes through the water surface of the aquarium.
Getting The Nitrogen Cycle Started
There are two ways to get the aquarium cycle started, either with fish or without fish.
Starting The Nitrogen Cycle With Fish
This is not the preferred way to get the nitrogen cycle started because the fish are being exposed to ammonia and nitrites during this process. Many fish can not and will not make it through the cycling process. Often times the fish become stressed and fish disease starts to break out. I wonder what percentage of disease is caused by the cycling of new aquariums?
Certain species are hardier than others and seem to tolerate the start-up cycle better than others. For freshwater tanks, the zebra danio is a very hardy fish that many use to get the nitrogen cycle started. For saltwater tanks, some have reported success using damselfish to get the process started. Again, using fish to cycle is not a good idea and you may be throwing your money (on dead fish) out the window. There is a better way. Read on, young grasshopper.
Starting The Nitrogen Cycle Fishless
There are a few different ways to get this process started. To easily get an ammonia reading from your tank water try the Seachem Ammonia Alert. It sticks inside the tank and has a circle that changes color depending on the ammonia levels in the tank.
Option 1:
Using Fish Food
Drop in a few flakes every 12 hours. As the food decomposes it will release ammonia. You will have to continue to "feed" the tank throughout the process to keep it going.
Option 2:
Use a small piece of raw fish or a raw shrimp
Drop a 2 inch by 1 inch chunk of raw fish or a raw shrimp into the tank. As it decomposes it will release ammonia into the tank.
Option 3:
Use 100% pure ammonia.
Using a dropper, add 5 drops of ammonia per 10 gallons of aquarium water. If you don't get an ammonia reading with your test kit, add some more drops until you start to see an ammonia reading. Keep track of how many drops you've used so you can repeat this process daily. Continue to dose the tank with ammonia until you start to get nitrite readings with your test kit. Once you can detect nitrites you should only add 3 drops of ammonia per 10 gallons of aquarium water, or if you added more drops originally to get an ammonia reading cut the amount of drops used in half. Continue this process daily until you get nitrate readings with your test kit. Do a 30% water change and your tank is ready.
Option 4:
Use gravel and/or filter media from an established and cycled tank
This is the best and fastest way to go. This will seed the tank with all of the necessary bacteria for the nitrogen cycle. "Feed" the tank daily with flake food until you are getting nitrate readings. Depending on how fast you were able to get the gravel and filter media into your tank, you may be getting nitrate readings in only a day or two. There are some drawbacks to this method. Ask your source if they have recently used any copper medications in the tank. If they have and you are planning to have invertebrates in the tank you should probably not use this method. Invertebrates will not tolerate copper. Get a copper test kit to determine if it's safe to use.
Good luck!!!~~~~<><~~~~><>~~~~
To Make Cycling Faster
http://www.bluecrayfish.com/cycle.htm
2. Keep the tank only about 50-65% full. This creates a waterfall effect as the water leaves the filter, and when the water from the filter hits the surface of the aquarium water, there is a great deal of water turbulence, exposing more water to more air more quickly, and leading to increased oxygenation, and thus, faster cycling.
3. Keep the aquarium light on 24 hours per day during cycling. Only do this if you have no pets in the aquarium which need less light, or which need darkness. The increased light leads to faster cycling.
4. Use as many air stones and air pumps as you have access to, which will fit in the aquarium. Keep them all running all the time. This leads to increased oxygenation, which leads to faster cycling. Only do this if you have no pets in the aquarium which need calm, or still water.
5. Keep the filter running the entire time the aquarium is undergoing the cycling process. This increases water flow, and insures that good bacteria build up in the filter material, both of which lead to faster cycling.
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2 Sunset platies require 100 bacteria to process their waste
5ppm of ammonia requires 10000 bacteria to process it's waste.
9900 bacteria would die when you added just 2 sunset platys.
Then when you added 4 shrimp and 4 corys imagine they took around 500 bacteria to process their waste. Well that 100 would have to double 5 times before the ammonia would be kept stable, and then it would take additional times for them to actually remove ammonia+nitrite from the water.
However if you add a large group alltogether then you keep most of your bacteria colony hopefully.
And so when you then add new fish, it should hopefully only need to double once to produce sufficient numbers to process waste.
That way you will never risk seeing an ammonia spike.
Eitherways there is certainly no point in waiting 2weeks, you could add fish every couple of days as it will have definitely caught up by then
Luckily I have reread the article on cycling. I had inconveniently forgotten that the nitrite had to be getting to zero within 12 hours also. I couldn't understand why the nitrite level wasn't going down when the ammonia was disappearing after 12 hours. I now realise we are only half way through cycling!
I wasn't aware that the bacteria would be dying if they weren't being fed by ammonia so I will take your advice and once we are fully cycled we will virtually fully stock. Thanks again.
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) Buy liquid testing kits for ammonia and nitrite
2) Buy pure ammonia (from a hardware store or department store)
3) Add enough ammonia to the tank to read 5ppm (parts per million) or5 mg/l (milligram per litre) on the test kit.
4) Test every day for ammonia and always add enough ammonia to keep the levels at 5ppm or 5 mg/l
5) Keep testing until you see the levels of ammonia reach zero within 12 hours of adding new ammonia
6) Start testing for nitrite and ammonia, and keep adding new ammonia if you need to
7) Keep testing for both until they both reach 0 after 12 hours
8) Do a very large water change (90%)
9) Add fish
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