I'm about two months into this hobby and I'm currently in the process of cycling my 92 corner marine aquarium. My goal is to eventually go with more of a reef setting however I plan to start out with a combination of some fish and perhaps some soft corals. So far I've been very patient and spent over a month after purchasing the tank and stand just gathering supplies and reading various books and on-line advice. That being said, it's been about two weeks since my tank has been running and at this point it's fill with nothing but water, live sand and live rock. I still have detectable nitrite levels so it will be another week or so before I add any fish. It appears I've already run into one issue and that is my tank is slowly being covered with this reddish/brown colored subtance. What I'm assuming is red algae. This leads me to my first set of questions for this forum. First, what is this a sign off and what could I have done differently to avoid this. Lastly, and perhaps most impotant, how can I get rid of it?
just starting out..need help.
- Thread starter Ronlezah
- Start date
well, im no expert, but it sounds perfectly normal.. you will usually get an algal bloom near the end of the cycle..
since nothings in there ...dont run your lights much...that would have maybe prevented it..
to get rid of it.. once the nitrites drop, and the nitrates read 0 stock your tank with the recomended clean up crew first...they will do it for you, and youll have something to look at while you quaranteen the fish you will be adding later.. notice the subtle hint there?
since nothings in there ...dont run your lights much...that would have maybe prevented it..
to get rid of it.. once the nitrites drop, and the nitrates read 0 stock your tank with the recomended clean up crew first...they will do it for you, and youll have something to look at while you quaranteen the fish you will be adding later.. notice the subtle hint there?
The brown algae will be diatom....It happens to all new aquariums....I'm a little concerned you have not mentioned an ammonia spike? did you experience one? if so, how many PPM (parts per million) did you show on the test kit?
Yes, I did start off with an ammonia spike. It went up to about 1 ppm (if I read it right). I'm using the test tubes with the drops to test the various levels and matching the color of the sample against the charts. I believe the resuts were measured in PPM but I could be wrong.