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newbie question

andrew71583

Non-member
its a newbie question and im sure i know the answer but i figure i will double check myself.
i have not cycled a tank in a long time, im cycling a tank now. tank just had a huge brown alage outbreak. this is normal and the start of the cycle correct? and this brownness should clear itself up on its own/??? like i said im pretty sure i know the answear but just checking.
 
correct, but it won't go away on it's own. It'll take some work on your part (water changes, flow, time) but eventually you can get rid of it.
 
lots of turbo snails lol
 
can i put turbo snails in while cycling?
and in regards to water, what excatly in tap water is bad? i used filtered water? is this not okay? i currently do not have an ro unit. last tank i went to sea creatures and bought water. this tank is bigger and i couldnt lug that much water to my house. if thats what i have to do, do you think i could just start now changing 5 gallons a week?
 
Well what's in the tank now? If there is no livestock and, thus, you are not feeding, then it actually could go away on it's own. Assuming the only thing going in right now is RODI water, then whatever the algae is feeding on should be exhausted at some point.

What kind of rock and sand did you start with? A bunch of dead rock seeded with live rock?
 
This sounds like diatoms.
It's quite normal to have a diatom bloom when first cycling a tank.
Diatoms will grow as long as there's silicates in the water.
The DI resin of an ro/di filter is the stage that removes silicates.That's why many times when the DI resin is exhausted silicates will appear even in an established tank after a water change.
I would guess that there's silicates in your tap water and maybe even some in the purchased water.
Sorry to say,but as long as you use tap water you'll continue to have diatoms fueled from the silicates.
 
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