Algae, bacteria-good or bad?

[tmarie10166]

Hi! I’m on day 37 of a fishless cycle. It is freshwater and of course, no coral etc. but previous threads seemed to experience what I am currently experiencing as every other forum, group, person has no clue what this is. This “stuff” has been in my tank for weeks and started to turn pink around day 33. I found the following information on a thread from 2016 and wanted to know if this seems to be what was being discussed:

“
You don't really want/need to control the algae during your cycle. It'll get fairly ugly at some point, but the algae that grows in there is a good indicator of where you are in your cycle.


First you'll see reddish or brownish goop. As mentioned before, it's diatoms. This stuff pops up when ammonia is being converted to nitrite.


When this phase passes, the diatoms will fade, and give way to green algae. Green algae comes in as the nitrites are converted to nitrates. The nitrates feed the green algae. If you do not add more "food" to the cycle, eventually all the nutrients will be converted to nitrates and used up by the green algae. Once the nutrients have been used up, the algae will die off, and your cycle will be done.”

Thank you!!


Also, if it helps-when I top the water off after evaporation, it’s disperses throughout the tank and once it settles, it settles in the same spot, the same size, and same shape.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Any chance you could get some microscope pics of a sample of it?

 

[tmarie10166]

Unfortunately no, I ended up siphoning majority of it out. Luckily it didn’t impact my cycle

 

[tmarie10166]

Any chance you could get some microscope pics of a sample of it?

Unfortunately no, I ended up siphoning majority of it out. Luckily it didn’t impact my cycle

 

[markron]

Hi! I’m on day 37 of a fishless cycle. It is freshwater and of course, no coral etc. but previous threads seemed to experience what I am currently experiencing as every other forum, group, person has no clue what this is. This “stuff” has been in my tank for weeks and started to turn pink around day 33. I found the following information on a thread from 2016 and wanted to know if this seems to be what was being discussed:

“
You don't really want/need to control the algae during your cycle. It'll get fairly ugly at some point, but the algae that grows in there is a good indicator of where you are in your cycle.


First you'll see reddish or brownish goop. As mentioned before, it's diatoms. This stuff pops up when ammonia is being converted to nitrite.


When this phase passes, the diatoms will fade, and give way to green algae. Green algae comes in as the nitrites are converted to nitrates. The nitrates feed the green algae. If you do not add more "food" to the cycle, eventually all the nutrients will be converted to nitrates and used up by the green algae. Once the nutrients have been used up, the algae will die off, and your cycle will be done.”

Thank you!!


Also, if it helps-when I top the water off after evaporation notary public close to me, it’s disperses throughout the tank and once it settles, it settles in the same spot, the same size, and same shape.

I have what I thought was a form of green algae only to discover its a form of bacteria. I have been given a treatment from my personal fish genius (it is a antibacterial pill used to treat infections, here in NZ you can only get it of the vets, they don't like you using it to kill algae) the thing with this treatment is it might do harm to my biological filter and I'm concerned that I might have to recycle my tank, any suggestions?