Things to do while Cycling?

inwall75, refering to the bio spira package, It seems that the amonia went down very quickly and my lfs said that is what it is designed to do- just bring amonia down quickly. The nitrite is through the roof and i just bought a nitrate kit, nitrate is very low.

You said to check alkilinity levels as in ph level right? that is wierd that i need to do that with purple up. What might happen if my calcium gets too high because i do not have a tester for that.

Thanks for the info on refugiums, im learning new things all the time!!!

 

Chemistry and the Aquarium
This article is about the relationship between Calcium and Alkalinity.
Something you will need to know about sooner or later

 

Alrighty so I am trying to keep things updated. So heres a photo of my tank because pictures can be worth a thousand words.
The algee is growing like crazy all over my live rocks. The rocks got placed in the tank last thursday. So its been one week.

So should I expect all this algee to go away as the tank cycles?

All the algee has little bubbles growing all over it?


Here you can see some close ups:



Just let it go?

 

Yup

 

THANK YOU. I know its what most says will happen but when you see it for real your like "Theres no way im just supposed to let that grow on everything"

Thanks.

 

You have dinoflagellates on the rock. The brown on the sand looks like a mixture of dinoflagellates and diatoms. If those are diatoms, you'll start growing little sponges that look like the ends of Qtips and the diatoms will disappear. The dinoflagellates usually disappear on their own provided you don't start adding and phosphate sources. I.e. fish food, fish poop, crab poop, etc.

Also keep your lights off as much as possible.

 

Keep my lights off? Dont I need to be running them for the cycle? Should I be running a short day? right now I am running both the lights 12 hours a day because I only have one timer. You think i should cut that back? Will it hurt the cycling?

 

Bacteria don't need any light at all. If your LR had a bunch of coralline on it, it would need a limited amount of lighting. However, full lighting over a 12 photoperiod while cycling will definately increase the algae phase of your cycle.