DBFish
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Hello All,
I'm new here and haven't had a fish tank in decades. I setup my tank about 20 days ago, doing a fishless cycle. I am dosing with ammonia from Dr. Tim's and adding Fritz Turbo Start 700. For the last week, my tests all come out identically. 1 to 2 ppm Ammonia, zero nitrites, and increasing nitrates now at 20ppm. My PH has stayed constant at 7.4. My KH and GH on test strips had been really low (almost non-existent). I did add some baking soda about a week ago to get my KH up, which worked and had no impact at all on my PH (which surprised me). My KH is now reading 40ppm and my GH is 30ppm, those haven't changed in a week either. My concern is the Ammonia. It seems I can dose to 3ppm ammonia at night, next day back at 1ppm ammonia and nitrites stay zero, nitrates increase slightly. From my understanding of the cycle the bacteria that convert nitrites to nitrates take longer to form and will be slower to build, but they seem to be working fine. The nitrifying bacteria that changes ammonia to nitrites can't seem to keep up or ever eliminate the ammonia in my tank. I'll also mention, I now have diatoms (brown algae) all over the gravel and plants, which I am wiping off slowly. I want to do a ~20% water change to help clean out the loose algae after I brush it off, but am afraid of disrupting the cycling process.
For reference, 65 gallon tank (36X18X24) with aquaclear 110 running with foam, filter floss and double the biomax media... no chemical filtration right now. Someone told me that I should shove a cuttlebone in the filter to help balance the KH, haven't done that yet. Pic for reference is from before the brown algae showed up.
I'm new here and haven't had a fish tank in decades. I setup my tank about 20 days ago, doing a fishless cycle. I am dosing with ammonia from Dr. Tim's and adding Fritz Turbo Start 700. For the last week, my tests all come out identically. 1 to 2 ppm Ammonia, zero nitrites, and increasing nitrates now at 20ppm. My PH has stayed constant at 7.4. My KH and GH on test strips had been really low (almost non-existent). I did add some baking soda about a week ago to get my KH up, which worked and had no impact at all on my PH (which surprised me). My KH is now reading 40ppm and my GH is 30ppm, those haven't changed in a week either. My concern is the Ammonia. It seems I can dose to 3ppm ammonia at night, next day back at 1ppm ammonia and nitrites stay zero, nitrates increase slightly. From my understanding of the cycle the bacteria that convert nitrites to nitrates take longer to form and will be slower to build, but they seem to be working fine. The nitrifying bacteria that changes ammonia to nitrites can't seem to keep up or ever eliminate the ammonia in my tank. I'll also mention, I now have diatoms (brown algae) all over the gravel and plants, which I am wiping off slowly. I want to do a ~20% water change to help clean out the loose algae after I brush it off, but am afraid of disrupting the cycling process.
For reference, 65 gallon tank (36X18X24) with aquaclear 110 running with foam, filter floss and double the biomax media... no chemical filtration right now. Someone told me that I should shove a cuttlebone in the filter to help balance the KH, haven't done that yet. Pic for reference is from before the brown algae showed up.