How To Setup a Healthy Marine Aquarium for Your Marine Creatures

Clownfishes, like other beautiful marine creatures, demand utmost care from hobbyists as they are highly sensitive creatures.

It’s possible to keep your own marine fish happy and healthy in a home aquarium. However, this requires you to be a conscientious and responsible hobbyist by providing a home to the fish that closely simulates their natural environment. Achieving this is a fun but challenging task that demands a good amount of reading up, lots of time and financial commitment, and patience as well as self-restraint.

In this article, the first part of 3 series, I’ll briefly cover the theory and basics of the marine ecosystem and the cycling process of a new tank setup. I also highly recommend reading specialized books on the subject and do some Internet research.

Basic Overview of the Marine Ecosystem

A marine aquarium environment differs greatly from that of a freshwater tank. The former needs to be regulated to be within very narrow parameters to create the ideal composition that marine life demands.

The important components of saltwater are: pH, salinity, alkalinity and calcium levels. Saltwater should also be devoid of toxic components such as ammonia, nitrite, nitrates, and phosphates. These components can only be tested with suitable test kits.

Marine Filtration System

Natural biological filtration occurs when bacteria of various kinds process toxic byproducts that occur in a marine tank into harmless forms. These bacteria inhabit the internal and external surfaces of rocks and inside sand beds.

The Nitrogen Cycle In A New Tank Setup. A new tank lacks biological filtration maturity and livestock will perish once toxic waste accumulate within a very short time. It is essential to introduce the nitrogen cycle to build ample bacteria populations first before the tank can house any marine livestock.

What is the Nitrogen Cycle?

The nitrogen cycle is a chain reaction in nature resulting in the birth of various types of nitrifying bacteria, each with their own job to do. The three components involved in making this happen are ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.

In general, the nitrogen cycling process usually takes about 30 days and not any earlier. Testing your aquarium water during cycling is very important.

No livestock should be introduced into your tank during this 30-day cycling period as toxic conditions are produced. Doing so amounts to cruelty resulting in needless livestock deaths.

• 1st Phase – Ammonia (Highly Toxic): Ammonia is the first component in the chain of the cycling process. You can kick-start the cycling process by the introduction of ammonia via the decay of a fresh prawn placed in the water. Toxic ammonia will build up to very high levels for about a week and a half.
• 2nd Phase – Nitrites (Toxic): On the 10th day of the cycle, another kind of nitrifying bacteria will process ammonia into nitrites. Ammonia levels should disappear and nitrites as a byproduct will build up till the 24th day. If you use your test kit, you should see it hit 15ppm, the most critical stage, and at about day 25 to 35, the levels should begin to fall off.
• 3rd Phase – Nitrates (Least Toxic): When nitrate readings begin to increase, you can tell that beneficial nitrifying bacteria are starting to establish themselves. You can begin stocking up with fish and coral slowly from this point onwards. It may be necessary to do water changes to reduce high nitrate levels.
• 4th Phase – Nitrogen Gas (Harmless): Denitrifying bacteria will take about six months to a year to establish and slowly but surely reduce nitrates in your tank.

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