The nitrogen cycle is of particular interest to ecologists because nitrogen availability can affect the rate of key ecosystem processes, including primary production and decomposition.
I also use sand in my tank and a handful or 2 of mature sand from another tank is added. I also use a bottle bacteria like DrTims to the tank to help create a bio load and speed up the nitrogen cycle. Once the first phase is complete I add a couple of the fish I want to keep then slowly build up my fish stock over years.

Nitrogen cycle: Nitrogen gas (N2) is the largest constituent of the Earth's atmosphere and is in soil pore spaces. It is relatively unuseable by plants; therefore, it must go through a natural fixation process to become available to plants. Greenhouse gases, including nitrous oxide (N2O) and nitric oxide (NO), can also be in pore spaces and be released into the atmosphere. The main inorganic ...
The Changing Nitrogen Cycle Look up into the sky and you look through millions of air molecules, eighty percent of which are nitrogen molecules - two atoms of nitrogen bonded together. Nitrogen is found all over the planet, not just in the sky. It is in living things, air, water, even animal waste. It travels between living and non-living parts of our planet via a process called the nitrogen ...
Instead, by altering the nitrogen cycle in soils, wildfires could be bolstering emissions of two important air pollutants, nitrogen oxide (NO) and nitrous oxide (N2O). NO is a precursor for tropospheric ozone, a harmful component of smog.