My nitrates are high and now I have brown/red/rust color on glass and LR

[Nano sapiens]

Thank you. That was very helpful. I thought I was done with the cycle, turns out I am still cycling. Good news is my shrimp, snails, crabs, and now my royal gramma are still alive. My gramma is very bashful and hasn't eaten yet. I hope I didn't add them to soon.

 

You're welcome.

 

Trivia: Way 'Back-in-the-day' before we used test kits (or even had accurate ones), the general rule was to let a new tank cycle for ~4 - 6 months. Besides ensuring that the cycle was complete and denitrifying bacteria were in full force, this also allowed time for all the small critters to multiply before most of the predators (fish and coral) were added.

 

Grammas are quite tough, so fingers crossed that it'll be fine.

[fishfreak0114]

I wouldn't worry too much about it not eating yet, sometimes fish moved to a new tank are just too stressed. When I got my clowns they didn't eat for almost two weeks! You could always try some frozen food, mysis or similar, soaked in a garlic extract like garlic gaurd which is meant to entice them too eat. I have some success with this.

[IBroughtPopcorn]

The Royal Gramma came out last night finally. It only eat one maybe two bites of frozen shrimp. As soon as I turned off my pump and wave maker he came out of hiding, and he was active. He was very quick to return to his hiding spot when I moved too suddenly. The troubling part is after an hour of no pump or waver maker running, and about 30 minutes of the Royal Gramma not interested in eating, I turned them back on. As soon as I did the fish went back to his hideout and didn't come back out. This morning, I turned off the pump and wave maker to see if the little guy would come out of hiding, and it did. I put food in and he didn't seem interested in eating. My question is what do I do about him hiding so much? Is it the noise of the pump and wave maker? I have a Rio 1400 is there anything I should do to quiet it down, if I use the suction cups and mount it to the side, would that help?

[Clown79]

If your ammonia and nitrites increased, processed, and are at 0 and stayed at 0 - then the cycle is done.

 

Nitrates are the end of the cycle and will not process to 0. Nitrates need to be exported.

 

10 or less of nitrates is fine in a tank unless sps dominated.

The rio pumps are notorious for being loud. I tried one for a day and couldn't handle the noise.

 

I couldn't believe the vibration it caused as well.

 

It may be the pump scaring the fish. They do feel vibration.

 

You could try to use the suction cups but it may just be the rio brand.