algae already?

Okay, Im just so scared my corals are going to die.. my tank cycled in less than a week? and the mollies I put in died after two days. im just worried its not ready ! idk why? everything tested zero.. my skimmer is still not set either so thats annoying as well.. what kind of coral dip would you recommend?

 

i use coral rx.... your tank cycled that quick because the rock had already came out an established tank and you kept it in water... im telling you, once you get some fish in your tank your skimmer will start to work..and you may have to adjust it a little... most people run their skimmers wet..not sure y but its a waste of the skimmer, a skimmer is supposed to fill up slowly and pull out a super oily and nasty smelly black junk..ill snap a pic of what my skimmer pulls out tomorrow to show you and it takes a few days for it to fill up..also my skimmer doesnt start pulling foam each day until around 3pm..not sure y but thats what it does..

if your tests are 0 then your tank is cycled... if it were my tank and i read 0 on salifert test kits than i would already have my corals over and a couple days later start adding fish, doing tiny water changes before you add each fish over the course of a few days...

 

well thats a relief its just all over the place now im not worrying about it. I will pick up some coral RX for my corals then, thats something I should ahve anyways! My tests were zero to start with I guess thats why i was confused. I'll start adding the corals this weekend then im glad it wasn't a big cycle.

 

i told you you wouldnt have much of a cycle if any....the diatoms your seeing is prolly from something plastic you have added to the tank...any new piece of equipment you add to your tank usually causes a small diatom outbreak until they are used up..

their are a few people on here that dose sililcates to their tanks to feed their pods and other small beneficial inhabitants in our reef tnaks..

 

hmm I dont think I added anything that was new.. but I did clean the skimmer..

 

i dont think that was it, but it couldve been the cause.. i cant remember if cleaning equipment can cause silicates.. maybe you washing the slime buildup that breaks it in couldve caused it,, but i know for a fact that a diatom bloom in a newly setup tank is the sign that you have ended your cycle..

 

Well that is good to know! I was like whaaaaat its already gettin crap in it.. but hey the crap turned out to be good for once When I take down the bio cube once I have everything in the new tank I was going to add the sand from the bio cube to my fuge, should I rinse it or anything of that sort?

 

depends on how old the sand in the biocube is...if its a few years old i wouldnt use it... anytime i ever set up new tanks or anything i always use new sand.. for 20$ you can get like 30 lbs at petsmart, so to me it worth it to just buy new.. but if your sand is under a year old then you could wash it, but im too lazy to do that and not worth my time...


when you start stirring that sand up its gonna be releasing a bunch of toxins and nitrates into the water, so make sure you really clean it good... i would boil the sand, just to make sure everything is dead and clean..but i take things to the extra mile when i do it.. and dont worry about the sand being live, it wont take long for the nuked sand to be live again..

 

Its about three years old so I'll just get new sand then, im way to lazy to clean it that good haha. but when I clean my tank out I have always stirred up the sand and sucked lots of crap out of it. I have like hardly any sand in there anyways so I think its just a waste of time I might as well just go buy new sand.!

 

yeah def buy new sand... too many problems can happen stirring up an old sand bed like that..