Another cycling question

[silentm]

I have been cycling my tank for 2 weeks now and have a few questions.Im starting to get brown algea on rocks and sand yay

.I bought my live rock from the famous site and tho it looked and smelled good it was not heat packed and took 4 days to get here.I have been testing my water every other day and my ammonia went up to .50 within the first few days and has dropped to almost zero,but my nitrites and nitrates have been off the charts since like day 3 and show no sign of decrease.
My questions
Should i do a water change to bring down the trites and trates,what about little necks can i put them in to help with trates?
Is the brown algea gonna be ok?
Since i didnt get any hitchhikers did my cycle even start or should i get a shrimp and start over?
Should i be running my skimmer or wait?
How long should i wait to get a clean up crew?
Any help would be great

 

[chipmaker]

Well if your tank had a rise in ammonia and nitrite, and now the ammonia is dropping off but nitrites are still highas well as nitrates, its doing what it is supposed to do. It can takes weeks or even months in somecases to cycle a tank, as it all depends on how good the live rock was to begin with, but even if it took a month I still would not introduce a shrimp to rot and polute the water.
Once nitrites start coming down, then you could do a water change to help get rid of the nitrates.

 

[birdy]

nothing wrong with doing some 10% water changes once a week, sometimes that helps if you cycle seems stuck.
Your tank sounds like it is right on track, trites and trates will drop pretty quick in another week or two, maybe quicker if you do water changes.
Don't add livestock and don't add a dead shrimp, everything you are doing is just fine, after tank has cycled you can add snails to take care of the algae.
You can run your skimmer during the cycle, I always do, one of those no definite answer on that one.

 

[silentm]

i just mixed up a batch of water and tested it,the ro/di water has 0 nitrites but when i added the salt it read 0.5..should it still be 0?