Lalaallieu
Active Member
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2019
- Messages
- 115
- Reaction score
- 134
Hey guys, I’m Lauren! I’ve had a few saltwater aquariums but never got too big into it as far as mechanics and so on until now. I have the Fluval Evo 13.5 and I did a fish less cycle with Dr Tim’s ammonia and bacteria. My ammonia went up to 4ppm and never came down. When I added the bacteria I didn’t take out my sponge filter. Dumb move I guess. The back said to take out a filter sock, which I don’t have which is why I didn’t take it out. After days of it not doing anything I went to my lfs and bought Fritz 9 and took out my filter sponge for 2 days. Finally my nitrites went up but ammonia never went down. I did a water change and my ammonia went down to 1ppm and the tank cycled itself from there. My ammonia and nitrites were and are 0.
Now my tank has a diatom bloom. A few other lfs’s I called said because my ammonia and nitrite were 0 my tank is technically cycled. When I asked on a Facebook group about the diatom bloom which I thought was something every new tank goes through at the end of a cycle. Anyways everyone is telling me my tank is screwed and it’s going to fail. I do have a head of frogspawn, some zoanthids, gsp, and a toadstool in there. No fish. Started the tank with live sand and dry rock. Everything looks fantastic except the diatoms.
One more thing, sorry this is such a long post! So I had two pieces of dry rock that I got from BRS. I went to my lfs and purchased a piece of dark red live rock. They said it was man made, already cured and pest free. It was in a tank of saltwater with other live rock you can pick from. Before I got my gsp I had a different coral, like a trumpet coral or something like that. I purchased it from Indy with a dead head on it. Eventually in my tank it all started to turn brown and I took it to the lfs where they gave me the gsp as a trade and said my calcium was through the roof according to their api test. They actually called off the test at 50 drops, but I came home from Chicago with a saliferts test kit just days after they tested it and my calcium was 355. They had me take the rock out and put a caribsea rock in and the diatom bloom started. I added a CUC so I have 4 snails and 4 hermit crabs.
Now my tank has a diatom bloom. A few other lfs’s I called said because my ammonia and nitrite were 0 my tank is technically cycled. When I asked on a Facebook group about the diatom bloom which I thought was something every new tank goes through at the end of a cycle. Anyways everyone is telling me my tank is screwed and it’s going to fail. I do have a head of frogspawn, some zoanthids, gsp, and a toadstool in there. No fish. Started the tank with live sand and dry rock. Everything looks fantastic except the diatoms.
One more thing, sorry this is such a long post! So I had two pieces of dry rock that I got from BRS. I went to my lfs and purchased a piece of dark red live rock. They said it was man made, already cured and pest free. It was in a tank of saltwater with other live rock you can pick from. Before I got my gsp I had a different coral, like a trumpet coral or something like that. I purchased it from Indy with a dead head on it. Eventually in my tank it all started to turn brown and I took it to the lfs where they gave me the gsp as a trade and said my calcium was through the roof according to their api test. They actually called off the test at 50 drops, but I came home from Chicago with a saliferts test kit just days after they tested it and my calcium was 355. They had me take the rock out and put a caribsea rock in and the diatom bloom started. I added a CUC so I have 4 snails and 4 hermit crabs.
