Newbie Algae and Cycling Questions

[frogboyflips]

Hello,

I'm a complete newbie to this hobby (never kept fish before) and never been to these forums before. Whilst we recently had some house renovation done I found an opportunity to set up a 500 Litre reef tank with sump in a wall. I've struggled on my own until now but felt it was time to benefit from the wisdom available here .

So far I have RO water mixed with salt, mostly live sand and 60KGs of live rock. I have some LED lights, a skimmer, heaters, power heads, ATO and return pump. Oh I also have some hitchhikers (a small crab or two), some feather dusters and recently added ceirth snails to the mix.

I have (mostly strip) test kits and hoped to see an ammonia spike, followed by a Nitrite spike followed by increasing levels of Nitrate. To help this - prior to adding the live rock I kept putting fish food in the tank. I may have seen some small increase in Ammonia at the time - but to be honest I've struggled to feel confident with making readings from the test kits. I thought after adding the live rock I'd see some die off and a spike - but I haven't. I can't really tell if I've not cycled at all, or if I have and somehow the nitrate levels are too low to notice. I want to add fish, but want to ensure that the time is right.

Since adding the live rock and sand (I had sand for a while (since 2nd July), then added live rock (18 days ago) and at the same time added a layer of live sand) - I've seen vast changes to the rock and algae blooms since then. See the attached pictures for where I am now.

I can't quite tell what the algae is, I've guessed diatoms but not sure about the fern like green/brown stuff growing over all the rock (and seemingly producing bubbles). I've kinda assumed that I should let nature take its course and it'll all be OK...

Can anyone suggest what the algae is? Is this all healthy? Do I not need to worry about the lack of Ammonia/Nitrite spike levels and gradually increase bioload whilst monitoring nitrate levels?

Much appreciate your help!

 

[sde1500]

I'd say the tank is cycled. You used mostly live rock. No reason there'd be a die off unless it was out of water for an extended period of time. As for the algae looks like a mix of cyano and green hair algae maybe. Monitor nitrates and phosphates now. You can add some sort of clean up crew as well to munch down the algae as well.

 

[outy]

Bryopsis its not unhealthy but it is a pain in the but.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2655497

 

[JUNBUG361]

water parameters? How long has the tank been up for cycling? I think if you keep adding live sand or live rock to system, it resets the cycle(IMO). Cyano bacteria is no good. I'd do a water change before adding any clean up crew (cuc)

 

[zheka757]

I added hermit crabs to eat all the green/brown hair algae of my rocks. and they did good job doing it so

 

[top shelf]

I'd ditch the test strips for more reliable and accurate test kits. Elos, salifert, Hannah checkers, and redsea just to name a few. My preference is salifert but would like to get a Hannah checkers for po4 when the salifert tests run out.

 

[frogboyflips]

Thanks everyone for the quick replies! :wavehand:

@sde1500 - I don't think the rock was out of the water for any amount of time, it was shipped from h20aquatics via an overnight before noon delivery - the rocks were still wet when I received them. I plan to add some more clean up crew (most likely hermits!), but I'll watch out for phosphates and similar.

@JUNBUG361 - Amonina 0, nitrites 0, nitrates between 0 and 10 mg/L (not good granularity in my test strip) - but most likely towards 0. Tank cycling for 19 days since last rock being added.

As per everyones suggestion, I'll most to liquid kits, I hoped to find electronic devices that could just give a number, but seemingly that isn't done.

@outy - is Bryopsis a type of green hair algae - or is everyone suggesting different things?

Was I wrong with my view on diatom algae?

Thanks!