How does my sump and tank look? Worried I did something wrong

[Dogreccos29]

Hey all, new to reefing. Been wanting to get into the hobby for a very long time and finally decided to pull the trigger. This is super broad but can anyone tell me if my tank and sump look fine. Just worried I got something wrong from the beginning and if I do I'd like to get it fixed. The tank has been running about 10 days and I added Dr. Tims on Saturday and have been following the appropriate dosing of dr tims ammonia. Yesterday my PH was 8.2 Ammonia 2 and my NO2 looked about .005 using a Red Sea test kit. When I originally mixed my water the salinity was 1.025 and now it is about 1.022. I was going to try and increase the salinity but I heard having it a little lower is better for the cycle. Another question I have is should I mix my salt to 35% or go with the 1.025 as I feel they can be slightly different? I use a BRT LED Refractometer for reading that.

I am getting a good amount of salt creep and micro bubbles but is that normally for a new tank especially running a skimmer? My tank is a 93 gallon cube with a 25 gallon trigger sump. I can list the rest of the equipment if anyone is interested.
I appreciate any help and guidance and the picture I posted was the only time I turned the lights on. There is a video of sump in the attachments.
Thanks!

 

[Idoc]

You do have quite a few bubbles in the drain section...the video is so closeup that it is hard to see exactly what is going on there. I like to run my drain PVC pipe extending about 2" under the water so there is no noise or bubbles.

The tank looks good.

Go ahead and shut off your skimmer during the cycle. You don't want anything present that could actually be pulling the nitrifying bacteria out of the water during this stage. But, some people run skimmers during the cycle and seem to do fine.

Keep your lights off during the cycle...but you already knew that...

Salt creep is normal...and with all that splashing and bubbles in your drain area, you are going to get a lot of it.

 

[homer1475]

Not sure why the new trend is to leave the lights off during the cycle?

Your going to go through an ugly stage regardless. Algae needs 2 things to grow. Light, and nutrients. Every new tank is full of nutrients, even after the cycle. Once you turn the lights on, algae starts to grow. I don't know, I have always cycled with the lights on, speeds up the ugly process. And it's boring to look at a dark tank. lol

I would have to agree with @Idoc though on the video being to close up to really see whats going on there, but you definitely have a ton of bubbles you shouldn't have. Whether they are coming from the skimmer, or your drain line is tough to tell.

New skimmers need break in time, so having it running isn't hurting anything, but with nothing in the tank to create waste, it's not really doing anything either. I would turn it off and see if that clears up the micro bubble issue.

A better video, or more pics would help too.