CURRENT FISH TANK SPECS:

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A basic understanding of a biological filter is necessary for any successful aquarist. When an aquarium is initially set up there is no biological filter present in the water because the colonies of bacteria responsible for it have yet to be established. When fish are added to the new tank they immediately begin to pollute the water with highly toxic ammonia exuded from breathing and waste. The water will look clean, but it is quickly becoming poisonous to the fish.

During the first 7-14 days ammonia will soar to deadly levels in a new tank, causing some fish to succumb and others to be weakened and take ill. Finally this overabundance of ammonia triggers the natural development of a good bacteria called nitrosomonos which feeds on ammonia, converting it through oxidation to nitrite.

Nitrite is less toxic than ammonia, but still deadly to fish. For the next 10-14 days nitrite levels rise as more and more ammonia is converted, with new ammonia being converted as well. When nitrite builds to deadly levels, the last stage of the nitrogen cycle kicks in and nitrobacter, another good bacteria, spontaneously blooms to thrive on the toxic nitrite, converting it to harmless nitrate. That "a" makes all the difference.

Nitrobacter takes longer to establish than nitrosomonos, so toxic nitrite will drop only slowly. But eventually both bacteria colonies will catch up to production, and keep up, canceling pollutants as they are created. When nitrite and ammonia levels both test at zero, and nitrate is measurable, the nitrogen cycle is complete and a biological filter has been established. This process of establishing the biological filter normally takes 4-6 weeks.

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UPDATES ABOUT MY ZEBRA DANIO FISH TANK!

So far my 10 gallon fresh water zebra danio fish tank is going very well. Cycling Your Fish tank like talked about above can indeed take a long time, and if the water is cold it can supposedly take even longer. I have tested my water only twice in the first 45 days. Both readings came to everything zero so I went ahead and added the 3 additional zebra danio finsh to make a total of 6.

When I only have 3 zebra danios in my fresh water fish tank the would swim so fast it was hard to even see them. I honestly didn't like that very much. However, when I added 3 additional zebra danio's the fish all seemed to calm down a bit, which is much nicer. The Zebra Danio's are still active but they are a lot easier to watch when they don't dart across the tank all the time.

If you look on the left hand side of the fish tank above you will see my home made, do it yourself biological filter. I had read up on building one of these and I didn't know what exactly to make mine out of. Basically I just have a very small air pump that cost about $6 at walmart and then I connected the end of the line to an air stone and put it into my plastic container. I have a rubber tube connected to the top of my inner plastic container to increase the air-lift ability of the bubbles. The more bubbles in a confined space traveling upwards for a farther distance equals a greater pull of water through my plastic bottles.

The bottom of my inner plastic bottle has some slits cut into the bottom to allow water to flow in. At first, I medium sized slits and no air stone on my air tub. This didn't appear to be creating almost any suction which is what you want because the purpose of an airlift is to move water past some substrate or in my case sea shells. As the water moves past is allows the good bacteria on the surface of my sea shells and plastic bottle and tube to come into contact with more water and thus, more ammonia and nitrites which they will then remove from the fish tank.

Anyways, I added an air stone to the end of my tube in my diy bio filter, but in order to do that I had to cut a larger hole into the bottom of the smaller plastic container. I don't know if smaller bubbles move more water than large bubbles, or if its the additional hole I cut into the bottom of my plastic bottle, either way, my water movement and suction has increased drastically. This is good news because I plan to overstock this small 10 gallon fish tank with as many fish as I can.

OVER STOCKING YOUR FISH TANK SUCCESSFULLY!

I have googled this subject quite a bit and have not found anything, thus I am learning from experience and trial how to over stock your fresh water fish tank successfully. In the fish stores or at walmart you see about 30 fish in an 7 or 8 gallon tank. Obviously they do major water changes etc, and have good filtration. Well, in my first 50 days of keeping these fish I have only changed out 1 gallon of water in my fish tank. Filtration is obviously the key and that is exactly why I have added an additional home made biological filter.

Currently there are only 6 zebra danios in my fish tank. I am aiming for 20+ danios, whether zebra danios or glofish. I may also add like 1 or 2 other exoctic looking small fresh water fish as well.