BananaWei
New Member
Hey y'all, I'm an infant in the saltwater hobby, just got my first AIO Tank, the Fluval Evo 13.5 gallon tank with no Skimmer I just have a few questions I have to ask. I fe like my LFS is kinda not giving me the best advice when it comes to this hobby.
So I started to cycle the tank on the 22nd June. I started off with live rock and a coral sand substrate. I added half a bottle of Dr tims, and run the return pump for a day. Thats where I got confused on what to do. I read online that I should be dosing my aquarium with ammonia but I wasn't given a bottle when I bought the Dr Tim's from my LFS. I asked my LFS if I should "ghost feed" my aquarium for a source of ammonia but he discouraged it as he said it was a different kind of "dirty". So I just continue to let the tank sit there with the bacteria and return pump running with no source of ammonia. The readings was 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 0 nitrate the entire time.
So fast forward to a week later, my LFS got new shipment of fish and he told me I should start to cycle my tank so I got a pair of small Occellaris clownfish and acclimated them and added them in. Readings were fine until 3 days after where I might've got my first ammonia spike of 0.25ppm. It's really hard to tell apart 0ppm and 0.25ppm but nitrite and nitrate were always 0ppm. Even now where it's almost a week in. Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrates are at 0ppm.
A few days ago I discovered air bubbles on my live rock, didn't pay much attention to it till today where I took a closer look and it looked like my live rock is covered in a brown slime with some stringy hair. Unsure if it's dinos, diatoms or cyano. I also noticed what seems to be the start of green hair algae, at least that what the very small patch of green seems to be. The brown thing also has small balls that got on the substrate and have small amounts of substrate surrounding it. Please help ID and if I should do anything about it. Also if I messed up somewhere in the cycling process. I just followed what my LFS said to do.
So I started to cycle the tank on the 22nd June. I started off with live rock and a coral sand substrate. I added half a bottle of Dr tims, and run the return pump for a day. Thats where I got confused on what to do. I read online that I should be dosing my aquarium with ammonia but I wasn't given a bottle when I bought the Dr Tim's from my LFS. I asked my LFS if I should "ghost feed" my aquarium for a source of ammonia but he discouraged it as he said it was a different kind of "dirty". So I just continue to let the tank sit there with the bacteria and return pump running with no source of ammonia. The readings was 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 0 nitrate the entire time.
So fast forward to a week later, my LFS got new shipment of fish and he told me I should start to cycle my tank so I got a pair of small Occellaris clownfish and acclimated them and added them in. Readings were fine until 3 days after where I might've got my first ammonia spike of 0.25ppm. It's really hard to tell apart 0ppm and 0.25ppm but nitrite and nitrate were always 0ppm. Even now where it's almost a week in. Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrates are at 0ppm.
A few days ago I discovered air bubbles on my live rock, didn't pay much attention to it till today where I took a closer look and it looked like my live rock is covered in a brown slime with some stringy hair. Unsure if it's dinos, diatoms or cyano. I also noticed what seems to be the start of green hair algae, at least that what the very small patch of green seems to be. The brown thing also has small balls that got on the substrate and have small amounts of substrate surrounding it. Please help ID and if I should do anything about it. Also if I messed up somewhere in the cycling process. I just followed what my LFS said to do.
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