Truf Algae Scrubber in tank while cycle is going on

[ghazanfar.ansari]

I've always follow the rule of thumb that your nitrogen cycle is complete when you can dose your ammonia up to 1.0 ppm and it fully converts to Nitrate within 24 hours (i.e. you should not have any ammonia or nitrite after 24 hours, and should see a rise in Nitrate)

What is your suggestion / guideline in my case. I was told to go for a 30% water change. But I don't think that this will solve the issue... As the nitrites and nitrates are fixed on these colours.

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

I think it's odd that you are getting any Nitrite reading. If the cycle is complete, you shouldn't get anything at all on that test. Could be the test kit brand, could be expired/bad, could be how you are running the test, etc. You might consider trying another Nitrite test (a cheap one, like API).

 

[ghazanfar.ansari]

Hi. Just did a 10~15% water change last night. Over the same night now my tank has a diatom bloom. serious brown patches on rock.. quite very dark brown in color. Planning to change more water in coming days but not more then 10~20%. Any suggestions / guidance.

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

Did you read that article I posted a few days back? Having a diatom bloom is a good thing at this point. This falls in with what I was saying before - don't chase issues. Let it happen, it will go away on it's own eventually. Diatom blooms on a new system are inevitable, don't fight it.

You might get dino outbreak as well. IMO and IME dinos are a result of bacterial colony imbalances. This can happen when you disturb the system too much, and this can happen when you do some seemingly non-disturbing things like flipping rocks, rearranging rocks, changing flow patterns, changing lighting types or photocycles, etc...anything that causes a bacterial colony to either die off or burst in growth. There are many different bacterial colonies in play and for the next 3-6 months, they're going to be fighting each other in the background (this is one of the things that you can't easily test for).

Then will come the algae outbreak. Again, this is nothing you are doing wrong if and when this happens. Part of the cycle.

Messing with things (or "chasing issues") just makes this worse and/or harder to pinpoint. Focus on water parameter stability.

On water changes, there are a few schools of thought here. Large (30%+), frequent water changes are kind of like a "shock" to the system, when compared to smaller and less frequent changes. Large PWCs should be reserved for when needed. Small PWCs (10% a week, 20% every 2-3 weeks, etc) help refresh trace elements. Alternatively you can dose trace elements, but sometimes nothing beats a little new water on a regular basis.

 

[ghazanfar.ansari]

Did you read that article I posted a few days back? Having a diatom bloom is a good thing at this point. This falls in with what I was saying before - don't chase issues. Let it happen, it will go away on it's own eventually. Diatom blooms on a new system are inevitable, don't fight it.

You might get dino outbreak as well. IMO and IME dinos are a result of bacterial colony imbalances. This can happen when you disturb the system too much, and this can happen when you do some seemingly non-disturbing things like flipping rocks, rearranging rocks, changing flow patterns, changing lighting types or photocycles, etc...anything that causes a bacterial colony to either die off or burst in growth. There are many different bacterial colonies in play and for the next 3-6 months, they're going to be fighting each other in the background (this is one of the things that you can't easily test for).

Then will come the algae outbreak. Again, this is nothing you are doing wrong if and when this happens. Part of the cycle.

Messing with things (or "chasing issues") just makes this worse and/or harder to pinpoint. Focus on water parameter stability.

On water changes, there are a few schools of thought here. Large (30%+), frequent water changes are kind of like a "shock" to the system, when compared to smaller and less frequent changes. Large PWCs should be reserved for when needed. Small PWCs (10% a week, 20% every 2-3 weeks, etc) help refresh trace elements. Alternatively you can dose trace elements, but sometimes nothing beats a little new water on a regular basis.

Great tips. Thanks for guidance. Would ensure to follow them. Will keep this thread posted/updated.

 

[SantaMonica]

When people start a scrubber during cycling it generally takes up any ammonia that develops. This helps the life in the live rock stay alive, because otherwise ammonia would kill it off.