Well it's Day 14 of the cycle and time for an update. We've noticed an erruption of life in the tank as of late, lots of feather dusters and/or tube worms all over the rock. The sand seems filled with little worm trails and whatnot. We also noticed some type of pods racing around the glass of the DT for the first time last night. I can't seem to get a decent picture of any of these things, so no photo updates for now.
I'm also experiencing a diatom bloom right now. It's on all the rock that I bought partially cured, but not on any of the cured stuff and not much on the sand. There's also a bunch in the sump, and surprisingly even in the bottom part of my skimmer! I'm not too concerned about it right now as I understand it's just part of the cycle. I've been running phosban in a reactor and carbon passively in the sump, hopefully it goes away soon.
Speaking of the cycle, I seem to have experienced my ammonia spike. It was about 1.0 ppm on Sunday, and is now down to 0.25 ppm. Funny thing is, I also had a nitrite spike, but now it's not measureable anymore even though I'm still reading ammonia. I'm wondering if it's because some of the rock may still be curring? At this rate though, my DT will be cycled before my QT, which has been up and running a week longer. This is annoying because I would really like to get some fish into QT so I can have some fish in the DT by November! Alas patience is what this hobby is all about...
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