# fishless cycling with ammonia



## Moe (Jun 18, 2012)

Hi Guys,

I started my cycling on 15 Jun on 90 gal tank with ammonia.
i started off with 4ppm and mantained it thru the week and now ammonia level it's starting to drop daily from 4ppm to 0.5 ppm and Nitrates are jumping to 1.0.

However, i have t5 light in there and i see alot of diatom algee growing on the rocks and some on the sand. I'm running lights around 12 hours or so. I may have been giving too much light. some suggestion in that area pls. 

What should be my steps going forward to complete the nitrogen cycle and growth of diatom algee?


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## Moe (Jun 18, 2012)

Some Pics.


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## Moe (Jun 18, 2012)

Some More


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

Run lights 8-10 hours, no reason to run longer, you don't have any coral to sustain. You don't have to do anything else with your cycle, you've got it jump started. Nature will now take over from there. The Diatoms will take care of themselves.


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## Kevinf (Dec 23, 2011)

Diatoms are part of the cycling process. It will get messy, then turn green, then go away. Be sure you have your protein skimmer running. Reduce your light to 8 hours a day. Use RO/DI water to reduce any algae from growing too fast.

KevinF


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## Moe (Jun 18, 2012)

I see some slowness in growth of diatoms by reducing the amount of lighting. Let's see tomorrow. I have kept the room dark with a couple of hours of lighting and mostly natural light coming into the room no direct sunlight. Hopefully this stuff is gone.

I saw quite a bit of buildup of brown layer in the skimmer i cleaned it out..it just looked nasty...not sure if had to do that or not but i just couldn't hold myself back..lol


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