Who Gives A Fish Forums

I've experienced significant growth in my one-gallon aquarium over the past year and a few months, resulting in very large mossballs. Despite the presence of numerous snails and not changing the water for roughly two weeks, I'm surprised to find zero ammonia levels according to my test kit. I have seven mossballs, each slightly smaller than a fist. Is this a normal occurrence?

A cycled aquarium is supposed to be ammonia-free, so yeah, 0ppm is what you're aiming for, that's normal.

Having a lot of plants is key, they'll take care of ammonia levels for you.

In a healthy tank, nitrates consume nitrites, which in turn consume ammonia - that's basically the nitrogen cycle. It's your job to keep nitrates in check with regular water changes, as a well-functioning tank shouldn't show any ammonia or nitrites.

In a cycled tank, you're not gonna see ammonia, and that's due to the Nitrosomonas bacteria breaking down the ammonia into nitrite, then the Nitrobacter bacteria taking that nitrite and turning it into nitrate - that's the nitrogen cycle for you.

It's actually the bacteria that consume ammonia and produce nitrite as a byproduct; then another set of bacteria feed on nitrite and produce nitrate. To clarify, nitrate doesn't consume nitrite, and nitrite doesn't consume ammonia - it's the bacteria that drive this process.