so tested again tonight to confirm the results from the last few weeks
0ppm ammonia
0ppm nitrites
2ppm nitrates
i've been tossing food and using the ammonium chloride that dr. tim offers once a day or every other day into the tank.
i had an initial spike of ammonia at .5ppm for about nine days. on the seventh day, and for only one day nitrites might have hit .25ppm but it was hard to tell. ever since for the last couple weeks i've been at 0ppm ammonia and nitrites and nitrates bouncing around 0-4ppm.
so i'm through the first part of the cycle and had only minimal diatoms which i was surprised by. most times with new tanks i see it everywhere and it gets heavy but the bloom was small and this time was only in patches and gone in three days almost completely. i have some remaining spots on my front glass that i never cleaned but otherwise the tank is looking remarkably clean.
going to wait a while for my first fishes but am going to call in my order for the first group of tangs or wrasses (don't know which i want to start with yet) (if you have an opinion about this, let me know) so they can go through prophylactic treatment over the next month or so and i'll have some life to add down the road.
right now, my fish list looks like below:
TANGS:
yellow belly regal blue
Paracanthurus hepatus
yellow (a few)
Zebrasoma flavescens
achilles
Acanthurus achilles
black
Zebrasoma rostratum
purple
Zebrasoma xanthurum
yellow-eye kole
Ctenochaetus strigosus
chevron
Ctenochaetus hawaiiensis
blonde naso
Naso elegans
ANTHIAS:
pictilis
Pseudanthias pictilis
blotched
Holanthias borbonius
WRASSES:
Lineatus Fairy
Cirrhilabrus lineatus
Scott's Fairy
Cirrhilabrus Scottorum
blue star leopard
Macropharyngodon bipartitus
