I've been dark starting my aquarium for around 4 weeks now, however the last 2 weeks I've been on holiday. I have remote control of the light unit, and just today realised I accidentally had switched the light on a week ago, and its been left on for the past week for 24 hours a day.
Here's what confuses me: I've been getting a family member to add large amounts of fish flakes to help with cycling, and furthermore I'm using RO water which tested around 10ppm for nitrates (my tap water has about 40ppm). Yet there is zero algae?
The only reasons I can think of are
A: my RO water actually has 0ppm nitrates or next to no other micro-nutrients at all and my test kit is inaccurate (but in this case Id expect the breaking down of fish flakes to promote algae growth).
B: my biological filtration has produced de-nitrifying bacteria since im using seachem matrix (but I've heard this is pretty hard to achieve, and isn't actually proven possible in most setups, so I think its unlikely).
C: algae hasn't had enough time to grow (but its been a whole week of 24/7 strong lighting)
However neither of these seem like satisfactory answers, given my water is completely clear with no signs of algae. And I know that there is nothing wrong with my water because biofilm was appearing a few days before. Im completely mystified as to why there hasn't been any algae growth at all.
For reference, im running a 30L nano cube, with an allpondsolutions 1000EF external filter, as of now with zero plants, running a Twinstar 300E light (on about 60% strength).
Here's what confuses me: I've been getting a family member to add large amounts of fish flakes to help with cycling, and furthermore I'm using RO water which tested around 10ppm for nitrates (my tap water has about 40ppm). Yet there is zero algae?
The only reasons I can think of are
A: my RO water actually has 0ppm nitrates or next to no other micro-nutrients at all and my test kit is inaccurate (but in this case Id expect the breaking down of fish flakes to promote algae growth).
B: my biological filtration has produced de-nitrifying bacteria since im using seachem matrix (but I've heard this is pretty hard to achieve, and isn't actually proven possible in most setups, so I think its unlikely).
C: algae hasn't had enough time to grow (but its been a whole week of 24/7 strong lighting)
However neither of these seem like satisfactory answers, given my water is completely clear with no signs of algae. And I know that there is nothing wrong with my water because biofilm was appearing a few days before. Im completely mystified as to why there hasn't been any algae growth at all.
For reference, im running a 30L nano cube, with an allpondsolutions 1000EF external filter, as of now with zero plants, running a Twinstar 300E light (on about 60% strength).