New with some Q's

So my tank has been set up for about a week now and 2 days ago i added a piece of frozen shrimp to get the cycle going, my fist question is how long should i leave it in there for?

Also today I got back from work and noticed almost of my LR is starting to get covered in a furry looking red algae and also there is redish brown spots in my sand on the left side of the tank away from the shrimp. Im pretty sure this is normal just wondering what exactly it all is haha.

Thanks

 

well yeah its normal... the brown stuff is anyway; there just diatoms. leave the shrimp until u get ammonia readings. as for the red stuff its probably cyano; do you use ro/di water?

 

I used distilled water to fill it up and well i had Ammonia reading close to 1.0 yesterday have not checked today. So should i take it out then?

 

if you have ammonia you should take it out IMO. as for the distilled water I'd still recommend RO/DI water; if you use it then you really shouldn't be getting any red cyano

 

no dont take the shrimp out untill you have a reading of 2 PPM. once that goes to 0 try raising it up to 1 PPM and if it clears in 8 hours your cycal is compleat.

 

o wow i just saw that ur from LITH im right in crystal lake

 

umm what? no man, you have to allow bacteria to grow by consuming ammonia, then converting it to nitrite, and then converting it to nitrate. once you have 0 for ammonia and nitrites and get a number for nitrates the cycle is complete

 

haha its a small world huh Con999

heres a pic too

 

yeah that looks like cyano to me

 

Looks like cyano, probably just part of the cycle,