Is it time for the CUC?

Tank is almost 3 weeks old, I have done two 25% wc's and all params are at zero now, loads of hair algae and a diatom bloom in certain areas of the tank. I did start it with uncured LR so I am not sure if this also means that the rock is now "cured".

Should I wait a little longer?

 

I would probably add 3 or 4 snails and a couple of small hermits at this stage
see how they react and then build up the CUC from there if all seems well

I would also not want my lights running, otherwise that algae is going to get out of control under these cycling conditions of excess nutrients and light

Steve

 

if you were using uncured lr to start , you may not have even cycled yet. doin water changes during the cycle with throw the cycle al lout of whack. have you seen any spikes in your ammonia,nitrite and nitrates? if not, i would be a little leery adding any sort of life in your tank. just my 2 cents tho.

 

I had spikes in the levels about 10 days in. ammonia peaked at 5ppm, nitrites at 1ppm and nitrates at 10ppm. Everything has since dropped to zero. I think I will give it another week and keep the lights off to reduce to the growth in the tank.

 

Sounds like it cycled if the ammonia and nitrite is back down to 0. I say get a few little critters in there and let them chomp up that algae.

PS: I dig the rockwork! I want to redo mine so bad but it seems to be a pain in the butt with corals/fish/sand/etc in there all settled.

 

Thanks....my wife and I changed the scape a few times and I have added a piece of rock here and there.