What is Cycling a Marine Saltwater Aquarium

tangs

tangs

Registered Member
Jan 7, 2010
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Peebles, Ohio
I am new to this site, just joined yesterday, and I have only had a sw aquarium for about a month now. I bought it used and with the fish in it. I have been reading some of the posts on here and came across this one.
Cycling a Marine Saltwater Aquarium. What is this and why do you have to do it? I don't understand. Please give me an explanation.
As for my tank, it was already an established tank. But it does have the cc in the bottom.
I also read that this is bad and that I should change it to sand. I can't afford to do that at this time. My income just stopped on me. Hubby working but not making that much.
I also have something else to ask, what causes a brown looking substance to grow on the tank glass, cc, and other stuff in my tank and what can I do to get rid of it?
Thanks in advance for all your suggestions and help.
Happy New Year,
Tangs
 
Cycling a marine aquarium is the process of getting bacterial life created inside the aquarium. The various types of bacteria deal with converting ammonia to nitrite, nitrite to nitrate. This is required because fish waste / rotting food causes ammonia. If this ammonia was never removed from the water ( by convertion ), it would burn the gills on the fish, for example. So, cycling is neccesary to provide a safe and livable environment for the tanks inhabitants..

Untill the point when you can afford to replace the crushed coral with aragonite sand, just ensure that you maintain teh CC well, by cleaning it on a regular basis to stop build up of detritus and food particles. If left unchecked, these will rot away and eventually cause elevated nitrates.

The brown substance on the glass is commonly diatoms...This type of algae is common to new / cycling aquariums.

Hope that helps.
 
^That.

When the time comes to replace the cc you may not want to do it all at once. You can use a gavel vac (no attatchment) or better yet a 5/8" piece of tubing to siphon out a little bit at a time. Not sure ho big the tank is but I would remove about a quarter of the cc bed during each weekly/biweekly WC and replace that area with sand.
 
Thank you both so very much. Yes it all helps alot. Now I have another question. This diatoms... that you refer to that I pasted here, is this good?

The brown substance on the glass is commonly diatoms...This type of algae is common to new / cycling aquariums
 
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