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What does it mean when you set up a new aquarium and it has cycled?
What makes it cycle?
What do you have to do to make it cycle?
What makes it cycle?
What do you have to do to make it cycle?
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Nitrogen cycle:
Phase 1: Ammonia (fish waste, extra food, houston tap water)
Phase 2: Nitrites
Phase 3: Nitrates
A healthy tank converts new ammonia to nitrates fairly instantaneous. Which is far far less dangerous than ammonia/nitrites to fish. When you start a new tank, you don't have the beneficial bacteria colonized in your filters to go through the converting process. So the ammonia stays in the tank a whole lot longer than it should.
When starting a new tank, you want to have some kind of ammonia production in the tank so that the newly forming bacteria has something to feed off of and start the cycle process. Some fish are hearty enough for this, or some people toss in a raw shrimp from the grocery store. Let that rot up which produces the needed ammonia.
When starting from scratch, you generally want 2-3 weeks for freshwater tanks to allow the bacteria time to colonize. Or, if you have an already running tank, just using a filter pad from the established tank would be enough since the bacteria is already colonized. It's a good way to jump start your new tanks filtration. If you test your water every day during a cycle, you will see probably 2 weeks of high ammonia, 0 nitrite and 0 nitrates. Then maybe 3-4 days of 0 ammonia, high nitrites, 0 nitrates. Then finally resulting in 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and high nitrates which then you reduce via water change.
Nitrates are still bad for your tank, just not nearly as bad as the others. You remove nitrates with water changes or plants/algae.
I'm sure it's more technical than that, but that's the general idea
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