Cycling?

[readmybreath]

it really confuses me.
can someone give me some simple steps that i understand?
or direct me to a good website that is easy to understand?

 

[theotheragentm]

Fish and other tank critters make waste in the form of ammonia.
When bacteria is present, they will "eat" the ammonia and turn it into nitrites.
When bacteria is present, they will "eat" the nitrites and convert them into nitrates.
Nitrates are removed by water changes generally.

That's the bioload cycle. So the idea of cycling is to build up the bacteria base. Fishless cycling keeps no live animals in the tank while building up the bacteria base so they fish don't suffer while you're trying to build up the base critters.

The point is to put in pure ammonia to start the development of a bacteria culture so that when you add fish, the colony is present to take care of the waste the fish makes.

This site has a pretty good run down of what to add to get the cycle going. Then it's just waiting until things zero out to add the fish.

 

[Zagz]

Here is a good article describing the nitrogen cycle.

Here & here are articles explaining fishless cycling.

 

[TomK2]

And here is one source explaining how to humanely cycle with fish, in case fishless cycling is not for you.

http://home.wowway.com/~tomstank/index_files/page0017.htm