Creating a healthy balance between good and bad bacteria in your fish tank or pond is crucial for the health of your fish. Many fish keepers consider anaerobic bacteria to be bad and that can certainly be the case if they are in the wrong place. Anaerobic bacteria, as indicated by their name, cannot exist if there are high levels of oxygen.
So they normally won’t be in your tank or pond unless you have a fairly deep layer of substrate and that substrate is not cleaned often enough allowing uneaten food and fish waste to build up, creating the ideal environment for anaerobic bacteria. Then if your fish has a small wound or their immune system is at a low point for some reason a serious health problem could result like fin rot, fish tuberculosis, mouth rot, skin ulcers and more.
Good housekeeping is a given to prevent these issues, but how can beneficial anaerobic bacteria improve the health of your tank or pond.
Aerobic and Anaerobic Bacteria
To control the balance of bacteria in your tank or pond, you need to understand the nitrogen cycle and how you can help your tank/pond complete the nitrogen cycle.
Naturally, your fish will produce waste, which will raise the ammonia levels in your tank/pond. Ammonia is toxic to your fish, so to counteract this, aerobic nitrifying bacteria consume the ammonia and convert it into nitrites.
Nitrites are also toxic to your fish, so a different set of aerobic nitrifying bacteria consume the nitrites and convert it to nitrates.
To complete the nitrogen cycle, denitrifying anaerobic bacteria convert nitrates into gaseous nitrogen. Unfortunately, most biological media that are on the market don’t provide a suitable home for the anaerobic bacteria that complete the nitrogen cycle. This results in the need for more frequent and larger changes than would be necessary if the nitrate level was reduced or eliminated entirely.
Supporting Beneficial Anaerobic Bacteria
Beneficial anaerobic bacteria are a key part of biological filtration to achieve a complete nitrogen cycle and reduce the frequency and size of water changes.
The best way to increase the beneficial anaerobic bacteria in your tank or pond to complete the nitrogen cycle and maintain healthy fish is with GreatWave Engineering’s Biohome® Media!
What makes GreatWave Engineering’s media stand out is its unique structure of tiny pores that supports anaerobic bacteria in its core, out of harms way, where the flow is very low, which is required for nitrate reduction, without the need for chemicals which incur a recurring cost. This creates a healthier tank/pond and happier fish as experienced by thousands of happy customers!
Start using GreatWave Engineering’s Biohome® Media and notice what a high quality media can do for the health of your fish and tank today!
