My first reef tank - complete newbie, please advise

[lkriley]

It looks like the Nitrites are indeed starting to decrease, the color is lighter than the nitrites. Test again in a couple days. I think you will see a decent decrease. Keep using your Seachem stability daily. It is building up your bio filter which is essential. Once your nitrite gets to zero, you can, if you wish, do a water change of about 25%, personally I do 20%. But try not to disturb your bio filter while you do this. You don't have fish yet so there really isn't a reason to vacuum the bottom, just remove some water and replace. There are a lot of different thoughts out there, but I personally think once a week is plenty for a water change. Then once well established you can increase the time between changes. Once your nitrates get pretty low you can go for that first fish or two. Then you start all over after a couple days, the cycle is much faster after the first one though. I would keep using the Seachem for quite awhile though. I hope this helps you. Be sure to post your pics as you go. It is fun to watch.

 

[lkriley]

It looks like the Nitrites are indeed starting to decrease, the color is lighter than the nitrites. Test again in a couple days. I think you will see a decent decrease. Keep using your Seachem stability daily. It is building up your bio filter which is essential. Once your nitrite gets to zero, you can, if you wish, do a water change of about 25%, personally I do 20%. But try not to disturb your bio filter while you do this. You don't have fish yet so there really isn't a reason to vacuum the bottom, just remove some water and replace. There are a lot of different thoughts out there, but I personally think once a week is plenty for a water change. Then once well established you can increase the time between changes. Once your nitrates get pretty low you can go for that first fish or two. Then you start all over after a couple days, the cycle is much faster after the first one though. I would keep using the Seachem for quite awhile though. I hope this helps you. Be sure to post your pics as you go. It is fun to watch.

"lighter than the Nitrates"

 

[lost66]

I check nitrites each day and they are still out of scale. Ammonia is 0, nitrates out of scale. My CUC is going well, I fed them twice during this week using in total 1 small frozen cube of mysis.
I noticed that some of my rocks are covered with brown and green thing. I assume brown thing is diatom and green one is what? It is hairy but small one yet. I assume everything is going well and nothing needs to be done beside time?

Should I add more CUC?

 

[Aqua Man]

That Picture looks good, water is clear. How’s the take now? Any updates?

 

[html]

I check nitrites each day and they are still out of scale. Ammonia is 0, nitrates out of scale. My CUC is going well, I fed them twice during this week using in total 1 small frozen cube of mysis.
I noticed that some of my rocks are covered with brown and green thing. I assume brown thing is diatom and green one is what? It is hairy but small one yet. I assume everything is going well and nothing needs to be done beside time?

Should I add more CUC?

The algae find nitrates faster than your test, you need algae eater and may be not 1

 

[lost66]

It has been while since last update. Reading, watching, talking. Learned a lot. Sucked in to the hobby on a level I want to buy 240g in the nearest future.
A week ago with fish https://photos.app.goo.gl/Zw16tp2cufEujTgV7. I think the progress is huge. CUC ate most of algae, I made mistake with orange goby which made my sandbed super clear but he messed up scaping and water not super clear because some smaller particles of sand was floating.

Right now all my fish are in hospital tank - ich (I hope). I made a stupid mistake and I wanted yellow tang so badly that I purchased it from a source that I didn't know well. My favorite LFS had it on 50% sale a week later... 5th day of fallow. So now I have a young coral garden. I have few soft corals, bunch of lps and 3 sps. I want to add more easy and cheap (just in case I fail) sps, add another rock on the right side to have more place for sps.

I am cheap guy, I always want to go cheapest I can. And this is huge mistake in this hobby. I IO salt for 200g and it is hard as rock but since it was able to dissolve in water I was using it. And my alk, calc and mg are on a low level and now I am slowly elevating those levels doing 10% once a week. What a journey, I think the best hobby I have ever had and I was busy for most of my life.

Today it looks like this.

 

[html]

yes, time here is the key to success