Topic author: spawn
Subject: CYCLING - make your tank stable - By Callatya !!!
Posted on: 30 May 2004 11:03:12 PM
Message:

An Excelent article by Callatya

CYCLING!

What is this i hear you ask? Well, put simply, its a septic system for your axolotl!

it lives in the water, it eats in the water, and lo, it poos in the water, but a lot of the time it doesnt occur to people that we need to manage the waste. Well, in this thread, hopefully i can give you the basics of how this works.

Its likely the cause of a lot of 'unexplained' illness and general lethargy, it can put critters off their food and it can cause gils to be less efficient.

Please bear with me. i KNOW its going to sound complicated and i KNOW you will all be tempted to click the "back" button, but once you wrap your head around it, its not that hard! I PROMISE!


OK, lets start really simple.

Axolotls poo, and they don't muck about in that department!
that waste product is a big source of ammonia. Ammonia is a fairly toxic substance that can cause redness, skin irritation, shrinking gills, and generally make Mr.Axy pretty unhappy.

when you cycle a tank, you grow bacteria that eat ammonia! these bacteria seem to be present everywhere, in the soil, in the water, etc, so they will just *appear* in your tank.
Well, they wont appear... they are very very small. Its a bacteria thing.
How do you know they are there??
By measuring your amonia levels of course! if the bacteria are there eating the ammonia, it will be decreasing :)

The problem is tho... bacteria need to 'go potty' too


First lot of bactetia 'poo' (for lack of a better term) something called Nitrite. this stuff is nasty, worse than ammonia even!
It burns skin, impairs breathing and can damage oxygen transportation by binding the red blood cells! Very bad!
But, there is a solution!

why, you grow a 2nd lot of bacteria!
this lot eat the Nitrite! They are slower to grow than the first lot of bacteria, but they get the job done.

you know, they 'poo' too, but the stuff they produce is pretty harmless. Its called Nitrate (notice the A) and it can get to about 50ppm before it becomes a problem.

so, quick recap.

Axy poo/uneaten food/decaying matter
= ammonia
grow first bacteria
= nitrite
grow second bacteria
= nitrate

Are you all still following? good :)

Now, what we have just covered is the nitrogen cycle as it applies to fishtanks (so its more of a nitrogen arc??) and although the nitrogen cycle keeps going around, thats WAY WAY beyond the scope of the average fishtank and fishkeeper (or axy keeper, you know who you are).

Sooo, to stop the nitrate building up, we do small water changes.

or

"Try a product called Cycle. bacteria in a bottle. It will 'sow the seeds' for your bacteria farm"


-= SPAWN =-
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Plenty more fish in the sea
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