fungus on my rocks?

[Roni]

Hi friends, new to saltwater tanks here and would appreciate some directions on how to handle the first stages of bio activity. I have e a 30g tank, just the bare minimum I guess to enter the hobby. It has been running for 2 months on a HoB filter with only sand and rocks in it. I used AF Bio Sand from Aquaforest and live cured rocks. Treated the water with Aquamaker from easy-life as the only brands available where I live. I am planning to introduce some fish soon and will use an internal skimmer. Would love to put some corals too but this will be well after tank is stabilized, fish are healthy and when I confident in what i am doing.
I would appreciate some direction on the next few critical steps i need to take before putting fish in the tank. Right now I need to understand what the green spots are on my rock. Should i worry, should i do something about it or is this normal and part of a tank's progress. Thanks a lot in advance to anyone with the patience to help.
Roni

 

[Rtaylor]

The pics aren’t clear enough for an identification, but most likely algae of some kind.

You need test kits for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate to see if the tank has cycled before adding fish. It should be able to convert 2ppm ammonia to zero within 24 hours. If you haven’t continuously added an ammonia source, it likely isn’t cycled.

 

[Roni]

 

[Roni]

The pics aren’t clear enough for an identification, but most likely algae of some kind.

You need test kits for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate to see if the tank has cycled before adding fish. It should be able to convert 2ppm ammonia to zero within 24 hours. If you haven’t continuously added an ammonia source, it likely isn’t cycled.

Thank you so much for your reply. I have not added any amonia sourse. The only things i used are the declorinator, a water conditioner and two days ago i added a bacterial combi system which is supposed to add some healthy bacteria to the tank. Baser on the instructions i must repeat this after 7 and 14 days for a total of 3 weeks. I measured the water quality via a strip test and nitrites and nitrate are elevated in the "water change" zone. I am not convinced a water change will fix the situation so i am stuck. Do i need to add active carbon to the filter? It's in my plan to do it anyway before adding fish but I wonder if it can help improve the water quality. It's a bit frustrating to not make sense of the situation and not seeing a clear path forward toward good cycling. thanks again for any help in the process.

 

[Rtaylor]

Carbon isn’t for this purpose. You need to do the ammonia test to see if it’s cycled. There’s no other way to be certain. If you’re measuring nitrates that means it’s gotten some ammonia source, but you need to know if it’s processing ammonia fast enough. Adding bacteria without adding an ammonia source is wasteful. The bacteria use the ammonia as food. It can be as simple as putting pellets or flakes in the water.