Hi friends! My husband and I are new to the sub/hobby and on Oct 2nd we started our first saltwater tank (I’ll put the specs below). 2 days later once filled with RODI water we put in Dr. Tim’s and 2 gladiator clownfish, 12 blue legged hermits and 5 turbo snails to start our fish-in cycle.
Our parameters were doing good for a few days I think but have been staying pretty stable with ammonia at .25. I don’t think we’re over feeding, we’re only feeding what the clowns can immediately eat. I’ve read that a partial water change could help but I’m just so anxious to mess this tank up and hurt our fishies. We have started having brown diatom algae growing on parts of the glass, rock and sand.
If anyone can offer us some advice I’d appreciate it! We’re trying to be as educated as we can be, we realize we were underprepared getting the tank but we’re excited to learn!
Tank Specs:
- 75 gallon Aqueon Megaflow overflow tank/kit
- Bubble Magnus Curve 5 Elite Protein Skimmer
- 1 2k icecap gyre flow pump
- 1 4k icecap gyre flow pump
- Fluval Reef 4.0 LED
- Caribsea Ocean Direct live sand
- 60 lbs of Caribsea liferock
- marineland heater
- eshopps reef sump 100 4th gen
- API saltwater master test kit
- bottle of Dr Tim’s all in one saltwater (for 80 gallons)
Parameters:
10/2: 1.025 salinity, 8 pH, 78°
10/4: ammonia 0, nitrite .5, nitrate 5
10/5: ammonia .25, nitrite .5, nitrate 5
10/6: ammonia 0, nitrite 1, nitrate 10
10/7: ammonia 0, nitrite .5, nitrate 10
10/8: ammonia 0, nitrite 1, nitrate 20
10/9: ammonia .25, nitrite 1, nitrate 20
10/10: ammonia .25, nitrite .5, nitrate 10
10/12: .25, .25. 10
10/13: .5, .5, 20
10/14: .25, .25, 10
10/15: .25, .25, 10
10/16: .25, .25, 10
10/17: .25, .25, 10