new to marine life

[tcstall]

I want to say hello all. I have been in my current venture with salt water for about 2 to 3 months. I did it about 15 years ago, and WOW have things changed. I have a 45 gal, hex with LED lighting. no fish yet but some cleaners. I am now beginning to get green algae after brown for it feels like forever. How much longer do I need to waite before adding fish. My Ammonia is <.25ppm, Nitrites -0-, Nitrates -0-, Salenity 1.024, PH 8.11. I test about once a week and do a 10% change per week.
How am I doing. No corals, Do have a starfish and shrimp, snales and hermit crabs and had them about a month. shrinp has shed once. :bounce:

 

[reefnoob]

Your ammonia should be at 0. If your nitrites and nitrates are still 0 while you have ammonia, it looks to me like you're beginning your cycle. But since you say that your tank has been up for about 3 months maybe something died or the test kit is wrong. I know that API test kits sometimes show that there is ammonia even when there isn't. How did you cycle your tank? What kinds of test kits do you use? How much do you feed?

 

[Smitty]

Hello and welcome to the site...glad to have you aboard.

 

[salt_for_brains]

Hello and welcome!! What brand test kit are you using to test? If your clean up crew is still going strong you are probably getting a false positive on your ammonia reading. Did you ever see a spike in ammonia, nitrites and nitrates?

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

+1 reefknob. I was told to add way to many cuc...... They died and my levels went crazy. 1 turbo snail dead in a 55g can increase nitrates to 20ppm a piece. Thats if it breaks down that far in the nitrogen cycle. Make sure you have strong hermits in there to clean up the snails. I dont want to go off on that hermits are not killers of snails, but more oppertunistic little devils. Welcome aboard and good luck

 

[Becky]

Hey there and welcome aboard! :wave: