Am I ready for CUC?

Tank has been running for about five weeks, but first two weeks only had a few pounds of LFS LR and didn't really start to cycle till about three weeks ago when I loaded it up with dry Pukani from BRS. Stunk like mad for a few days. Now I have the powder looking brown algae growing all over the place. Using tap water--sorry, but can't afford RO/DI water right now. Using GFO for the time being.

Here are my test results from last night:

Temp 79.4
Ph 8.4
Ammonia .10
Nitrite .075
Nitrate 30
Calcium 500
Phosphates .1
Alk 2.0


46g bow, eshopps 75 skimmer, 15g refuge, 55lbs Pukani LR, 60 lbs marcosrock sand, aquaticlife 4 T5HO fixture, 2 Korila 750 powerheads.

Was gonna go with the standard 46 bow quick pack.

 

you still have nitrites and ammonia. you're still cycling.

you need to wait for your ammonia and nitrites to hit 0 AND for them to remain at 0 for a couple weeks (sometimes they hit 0 and a few days later are up again).

Don't add your CuC before then.

 

Also, that's a really high phosphate reading... You using tap water? I'd be concerned by that.

 

I would wait for your ammonia and nitrites to drop to zero. Inverts are sensitive enough. then you add shipping and new environment, and you could lose everything...

 

okay no prob, I'll wait.

The phosphates reading was the second to the lowest on the test kit's card. I think that one was actually .1. whoops

 

I like your setup, the rockwork looks good.

 

that algae is a direct result of tap water. well, and the cycle as well.

can you at least afford distilled water from the grocery store? A decent water change would cost you about $20 minus the salt

 

Yeah I didn't know it was that cheap--would have done that from the start if I did. I was basically going by the $15 for 5 gal from the LFS. I was out on the $150 to fill my tank up so said screw it and went tap. I knew I'd get an earful on here.

I'll check my log when I get home for the test results but I was hoping I could get away with running GFO and large macro refuge to counter the tap water till I found a way to hook up a ro/di setup in my townhome.

Bring on the lashings

 

Okay home and checked my log

NH - .10
N02 - .075
N03 - 30
PH - 8.4
Alk - 2.0
P04 - .1
Cal - 500