Why Do Water Changes At All?

I think this is a common question for people brand new to keeping aquariums. It’s easy to think that fish just need water, why do we have to keep changing that water? Just like a water bowl for a dog, we change the water to keep it clean, remove things we don’t want, and supply fresh clean water. This post will talk about the many benefits of water changes!

Removing Nitrate

We discussed the nitrogen cycle before and how it produces nitrate or nitrogen gas. Now let’s talk about how to remove that from our tanks.

Nitrogen Cycle

When people talk about cycling tanks this is what they are referring to. This is a process that happens in both freshwater and saltwater aquariums alike. It’s important to cycle a tank before adding any livestock. To summarize it up – the cycle takes ammonia which is toxic and converts it to a safer product called nitrate.