How far into the cycle am I?

[Jukas]

I have a 75g filled with ro/di water, the live rock I had circulating in rubbermade tubs with powerheads and heaters also using ro/di water. I recently moved all the live rock into my display tank, and set it up with "live sand" in a bag with a biological activator. It's been up and running that way for approximately two weeks.

I tested the water last night

PH 8.4
Ammonia 0
NitrItes 0 or maybe 0.25
NitrAtes 0 - 0.25

(I have a hard time reading those API tests at 1am =\ )

Water was clear, all rock looked normal, etc.

I came home from work today and found a good portion of my liverock has a green/brown algae bloom and a similar algae bloom on the top layer of the sandbed, so I retested.

PH 8.4
Ammonia 0
NitrItes 0
NitrAtes 5ppm

That tells me the tank is still at some point in the cycle, but I'm unclear on if I should be starting water changes, or if it's at the start/middle/end of the cycle. My LFS said I should first see a spike in ammonia, then trItes then finally trAtes and once Ammonia and trItes were at 0ppm I should start doing water changes, but they also never mentioned seeing any kind of algae bloom.

 

[blue_eyes53813]

If it was mine I would ride it out longer. No water changes yet.. It seems to be doing a small cycle. If you interfere and start taking the "good bacteria" out when it is cycling it may prolong or weaken the cycle.. I would try adding some more bacteria like with Deli shrimp in a netting or even bottled bacteria from yout lfs and see if another cycle starts or how the tank handles the bacteria.. if you add livestock to early it may cycle with the livestock and kill them... take it slow...