- Today in the 5-Minute Salt Water Aquarium Guide
we're going two steps further than any other cycle video.
Not just making the tank safe for fish,
but showing you how to completely avoid
a whole slew of challenges new reefers run into.
The easiest and most stable path to success,
all that's coming up.
(upbeat music)
Hey I'm Ryan, your host at BRStv
and the 5-Minute Saltwater Aquarium Guide.
This is a clear, simplified, and direct path to setting up
that first successful reef tank.
It's time to talk about cycling a reef tank.
There are two challenges here.
The first is fish release toxic ammonia into the tank
through their gills and waste.
Ammonia also builds up from uneaten food breaking down.
So the first step of a reef tank cycle is eliminating
ammonia from the tank, and that's today.
The second challenge is reef tanks
have super bright lighting, which is prone to growing pests
like algae in brand new tanks, so the second step of cycling
a salt water tank is setting the tank up for success
in avoiding many of those pests.
That's in the next episode, but these two steps combined
is a wholistic path to cycling a tank,
where I strongly believe initial success rates
will double, if not triple.
So let's cycle these two tanks, staring with that first part
eliminating toxic ammonia.
The reason it's called the nitrogen cycle
is because there's a few things happening here.
The ammonia from the fish is processed by bacteria
into much safer nitrite.
And then new bacteria processes nitrite into nitrate,
which in some instances is processed by another
new bacteria into nitrogen gas,
and bubbles out of the tank into the atmosphere,
where the nitrogen is used by new organisms.
The nitrogen cycle or this process feeds most
of the life on the planet, but we use it in our tanks
to rapidly eliminate toxic ammonia.
All this is based on naturally-occurring bacteria
and it's going to populate your tank on its own
and do that for you.
In fact, you really couldn't stop it if you wanted to.
Most of today's episode is just about how fast that happens.
There are a dozen ways to get the cycle going,
eliminate ammonia, and get the tank ready for fish.
If this is your first rodeo,
simple paths with the least frustration often have
the highest success rates,
and success is our primary goal here.
In that spirit one of the highest success rate paths
that I've seen is add a hardy fish, like a clown fish,
and then protect it by adding a bacterial booster product
to immediately elevate the bacteria populations
that rapidly convert the ammonia and cycle the tank.
Doctor Tim's One and Only MicroBacter Seven,
or MicroBacter Start are all options for that.
They're all slightly different but work in similar ways.
Doctor Tim's and MicroBacter Start are the fastest ways
because they're all live bacterial cultures.
Doctor Tim's One and Only is the one that we've used
around here the most,
probably a hundred tanks over the years,
and I don't think we've ever lost a fish
to the ammonia cycle
but I could probably say that about most of these boosters.
These bacterial booster products just work really well.
We're using Doctor Tim's here,
the four ounce treats up to 60 gallons.
I wouldn't under size, but you really can't use too much.
Add your first clown fish and pour in the entire bottle.
The tank now has adequate bacteria for the fish
and will populate the rocks' surface.
The bacteria population will scale
with the amount of fish you have.
As to how long this will take
and how to know when it's done,
good practice is pick up an ammonia test kit
and test once a week.
The Red Sea Test Kit gets the best reviews
and what I would use.
Once the tank is reading zero ammonia for a few weeks,
it's ready for the next fish.
However rather than just waiting a few weeks
after ammonia hit zero,
best practice is also pick up a nitrite test kit
and wait for that to hit zero as well.
At the same time, safe nitrate will start to show up
on your nitrate test kit.
You can be sure that your cycle's done at that point
and ready for the next fish.
If you want to test for all this the Red Sea Marine Care Kit
will give you all the cycle-related kits you need.
Just a note on this process, it's the only time
that you'll ever use many of these test kits.
After you've confirmed the cycle is done,
the ammonia and nitrite test kit will go into storage
for the next tank.
After the cycle is done it's safe to add another fish
every few weeks.
After you have a few in there, it's typically safe
to add a couple at the same time,
but with bigger fish, I'd still go one at a time.
Now that the tank is ready for more fish,
it's time to talk about the second stage of that cycle.
This is a stage where if applied right,
you can dramatically reduce the chances
that you run into algae or other pests in that first year.
All that's coming up in the next episode.
The entire Salt Water Aquarium Guide's always
available here, but if you want to know how to completely
avoid all the challenges most reefers run into,
an ounce of prevention's worth a pound of cure,
and it's all right here.