Before you can add any fish to an aquarium, you should get the nitrogen cycle started. All fish expel ammonia waste. In the presence of oxygen, bacteria convert this to nitrite, then to nitrate. More modern reef aquariums want to minimize nitrates and use an anaerobic cycle to convert the wastes to elemental nitrogen which bubbles off.
Since I wasn't seeing any ammonia after having the live rock in for a week, I decided to add a whole raw shrimp to get things moving along. It was completely decomposed within two weeks. I saw a peek ammonia of .5ppm. Levels have since returned to zero. I have yet to detect any nitrites, but have seen my nitrates climb steadily to 20ppm during the shrimp decomposition. Since a whole shrimp is way more than I will be feeding my fish, I believe enough bacteria is ready for whenever I finally get to add my fishies.
No comments:
Post a Comment