The Puffer Forum

Thanks for everyone's help so far and please bear with me... My new tank is going on two weeks, and the one remaining damsel seems to be healthy. Seeing lots of bristle worms in the live rock, and little shrimp-like critters in the sand. I added a few small hermit crabs to help with clean up, but some of the previously white rocks are being covered in brown algae / diatoms - nothing furry, just a brown coating. Ammonia and phospate are barely detectable, pH is 8.2... Oddly nitrogen is still less than 10 mg/L.

So two questions:
I'd read somewhere that the appearance of algae is a good sign that the tank has fully cycled. I'm afraid to put fish in just yet, having not seen the nitrogen spike. Thoughts/recommendations?

Is it a bad idea to do a relatively small water change on a tank this new? I've been extremely careful not to overfeed the damsel - literally making sure every flake or shrimp that gets in the tank is eaten. But there's enough garbage on the sand (the hermit crabs have picked a lot off the live rock) that I'd like to clean it up a little.

Water changes can NEVER hurt. If you are showing any ammonia/nitrite at all, your tank is not cycled. Diatoms are a normal stage of new tanks.

Thanks, looks like I'll be changing water tonight.