Bacteria in Your Aquarium

There is more than just buying an aquarium, decorations and fish when starting your very own man-made aquatic niche. The preservation of such man-made niche can be a little bit tedious. We have to consider a lot of things when starting your own aquarium at home. We have to be wary of the size of the aquarium, to the heater, filter, air pump, covers, and light fixtures and even with the nitrifying bacteria.

We can say that nitrifying bacteria can be found almost everywhere! They are most abundant in soil and water which have a very high amount of ammonia. Usually, they are found in sewage and lakes because these have very high inputs of sewage wastewater that certainly contains a high amount of ammonia.

Since ammonia is present in the natural habitat of the fish that we can buy at our local pet shop, we should ensure that we nitrifying bacteria are present in our homemade aquarium. So we really have to give high consideration to the overall set up of our aquarium. We should ensure that the simulation of the sea organism's original habitat is well taken care of. We have to give a lot of consideration to the different elements found underwater so that it would really be a carbon copy of their environment under the ocean, and nitrifying bacteria should also be present.

Nitrifying bacteria or also known as nitrifiers are good or beneficial bacteria. They are present after you have successfully established a new cycling tank, and they provide biological filtration. Without these nitrifiers, our tank will surely turn into a toxic waste dump.

Ammonia can be beneficial industrially, but there was a study that showed the shocking effects of ammonia poisoning to fishes. The effects can be threatening to fishes because they target the tissues, especially in the fish's gill and kidney. As the fish become physiologically imbalance, they can be now more prone to certain diseases, and sometimes, even death.

Not only ammonia can be poisonous to fish in our tank. Even nitrite can be poisoning. These nitrites can prevent the red blood cells to take up oxygen. This condition is more common to freshwater fishes than other sea animals.

To prevent all of these, we need nitrifiers in our aquarium. These nitrifiers or aquatic bacteria turns ammonia to nitrite, then nitrite will be converted to nitrates. These good bacteria usually live on the rocks, gravel, on the filter media, sand, biowheels, etc.

There are two species of bacteria, and these two bacteria are dependent to each other. The first one controls the amount of ammonia in the water by converting it to nitrites. The second kind of bacteria will then convert nitrites into nitrates.

Nitrifying bacteria depends on a biochemical reaction called oxidation; where in oxygen will be transporting electrons that extracted from the ammonia or nitrite compounds. If there is low oxygen level, the bacteria will then use nitrite/nitrate which will then reverse nitrifying to denitrifying.

All aquariums are loaded with oxygen for the fish's respiration; the bacteria need ammonia so they can survive. In fish's respiration and with the decaying feed, a lot of ammonia is produced. So it's a cycle that we need to maintain so we can prevent New Tank Syndrome, a case where in fish in an aquarium will be poisoned due to an alarming amount of ammonia in the water.