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Perfect harmony in a drop

Did you know that the best way to keep an aquarium is to focus on taking care of bacteria first? Most of the time when people buy a brand new aquarium, and put fish in that day, the fish usually suffer and die within 2 weeks. Called “new tank syndrome”, this happens because the aquarium doesn’t have enough beneficial bacteria living within its walls.

Bacteria are everywhere around us, except for most tap water sources because of chlorine. New aquariums must sit for about a month, giving the chlorine in the water time to evaporate, and allowing bacteria floating around in the air to settle in the water, and start colonizing the surfaces.

Once the bacteria have established a large enough population within the filter, on the decorations, and every surface underwater, they are ready to consume the ammonia from fish waste. Ammonia is the toxic byproduct of fish waste, and the bacteria eat it and transform it into nitrates, which are safer and can be absorbed by plants, completing the chain of support that exists everywhere else in nature