New Tank Cycling

[Tony W]

OK I'm in week three of cycling my tank getting it ready for live stock. I had brown spots form on the sand in the tank said it was normal. Cool had green algae start to pop up in the sand also brown spots are going away or at least not as dark as before. Now I see green algae starting to pop up on some of the rocks and a few pieces of hair algae I guess also. Did a water test. Sal. 1.022 Ph 8.0 Ammon 0 Nitrate 0 and nitrate 5.0 . Is this still a normal part of cycling the tank or should I do a water change? Is it time to start adding some type of clean up crew. Is it ready for it's first fish??? Thanks in advance

[goof89]

I would recommend to Start with some damsels or chromies. I added a clean up crew before fish


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[SammieT]

I'd try and drop your nitrate level down first before adding fish. It's just my personal preference

[jason142]

Although your salinity is a little on the low side you shouldn't have any issues but I would still recommend raising it to 1.025. If your nitrates are 5 ppm which I am assuming correct that is not bad at all, although I would not recommend it mine are consistently above 20ppm. Start with adding a cleanup crew to start to take care of your algae, some hermits, cerith and nassarius snails are a great start. I personally would never cycle a tank with damsels. Once they are established get very territorial, do not play well with newer fish, and often times the aggression can be so great that they will kill them.

[mrtintsd]

I just went thru the same thing. I added a clean up crew and all was good. They work hard and fastk so dont over do it and leave them starving after they do their job.

[Tony W]

Thanks will add a small clean up crew this week. Thanks for the feed back :-)