Just started cycling... brown stuff appearing

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djmpj2

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Dec 22, 2004
Messages
222
Location
New Jersey
The tank has been up for about a week. We put a large table shrimp in to help cycling. Today there is brown stuff on the LR. I am assuming this is algae from reading the posts.

Do I leave the table shrimp in there forever? Until it totally disappears? It is looking pretty nasty.

Will the brown stuff go away on it's own or should I try to get it off the rock?

Here are my readings as of last night:

Nitrate 20
Nitrite 3.0
PH 7.7-8.0 (added something to raise it today)
ammonia .50
Spec. Gravity 1.021
Temp 79F

DJ
 
brown stuff is normal. you may want to just take the shrimp out and let the die-off on the rocks cycle the tank for you. I took my shrimp out after about a week.
 
Do you have a skimmer? If so, crank it up, that will speed up the algae's demise.
Like Rocketseason said, its normal.
 
We have been running the skimmer for 2 days. In addition to the brown stuff, today there is white stuff on the rocks. Looks like it snowed in there. Is this normal too? The Protein Skimmer is starting to collect some foam. It is also producing micro bubbles. Will this stop eventually and is the white stuff OK too?

All my water parameters are the same (as stated above) except for the PH is up to about 8.1. Is this normal for it to stall at these numbers for a few days?

Our LR doesn't really have any good colors. Just some different shades of green. We just have the stock lights that came with the tank (two 24inch 20watt Floresant bulbs). Is that why we don't have good colors.

See picture below.

DJ
 
You don't really need to test nitrates yet. Having nitrites will give you a false reading of nitrates from what I have read. Once your ammonia and nitrites are 0 add some snails. This helped my tank clear up quickly.

Not sure about the white stuff. Is it bubbles?
 
It's definetly not bubbles. It has the same consistency as the brown stuff. Sorry the picture doesn't show it too well.

DJ
 
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