75 gal tank progress for dummies

Weatherboy

Weatherboy

Member
Since I'm a newb, don't mind the title. But getting smarter...I think.

Okay, so here goes. Had the 55gal running for 2 1/2 weeks with live rock and dead rock. Marineland 350.

Last Friday upped to the 75. Same filter but added more dead rock and a canister filter that was used for freshwater. Cleaned it and now attached with marineland for now. Rather ditch the marineland soon.

Had two gold belly damsels and 3 hermits.

Over a week later ammonia at 1ish
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 10-20
Ph 8.3
Salinity is fine.

Been adding prime almost daily and some liquid bacteria once a week.

Kinda shocked still have ammonia. Feeding to much?

Seems I had diatomes grow for a while, but now fading away. Can't imagine the hermits did all that. No algae despite light on for 6 hours a day and blue at night.
All else "looks" okay. Just waiting.

Advice?
 

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lmforbis

lmforbis

Well-Known Member
Prime will give you a false positive for ammonia. That doesn't mean it isn't there or still being generated. Prime detoxifies the ammonia but it doesn't get rid of it. It can still be read in most ammonia tests except the SeaChem ammonia test. It just won't hurt the fish. The new dead rock may have had some dead material that is decomposing causing an increase in ammonia.
I'm a little worried that the use of prime may slow the colonization of the bacteria. Not sure though, it may also be able to use the detoxified form. You may want to start backing off on the prime a little. Hopefully some others will chime in on the subject.
 
Weatherboy

Weatherboy

Member
I really can't tell if anything is growing on dead rock. I say nothing.

Is this just waiting?
 
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one-fish

one-fish

Active Member
Advice don't like giving that (still new also) but will tell you what worked for me, Let nature do it's work didn't add chems to help rush things not saying they don't work I wanted to see all spikes and then level zero. Memory serves right had off scale Amm. for 2-3 weeks the nitrites and then nitrates. Diatom algae is natural for a newly cycled tank as is green hair algae which took me a long while to rid. If it were me I would stop using Prime and continue monitoring water parms even though directions do say to use during tank cycling. Every tank does not cycle in X amount of time some faster some slower if you haven't seen a nitrite spike then it hasn't finished it's cycle And sorry yes it's a waiting game..
 
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