cycling: can I do a water change?

[purple_drazi]

I've got green algae blooming on the sides of my tank now and brown algae (it wipes off) on the plant leaves.

I'm doing a fishless cycle and the ammonia is at 0, nitrites are at 2.0ppm but the nitrates are up to between 50-110ppm (hard to tell with that stupid colour chart!). The light is on a timer. It's on 4hrs in the morning, off for 3 hrs, then on for another 4. The plants are getting MasterGrow fertilizer (leaves were going skeletal) and have some nice new growth now.

I haven't done a water change because I thought you're not supposed to until the cycle is finished (not sure where I got that idea but anyway...) but I've just read on another thread that algae love high nitrates.

Can I/should I do a water change? How much?

 

[Bangin]

Have you ever checked the nitrate reading of your tap water? That may be the reason for your high nitrates. The ferts may be responsible for the algae problem too. How much lighting do you have over your tank, and what size is your aquarium?

The algae problem confuses me because I didn't have a problem with algae (and still don't) when I cycled with plants. I suppose high light with the addition of CO2 is responsible for my algae-free tank.

 

[Lateral Line]

The ammonia you are cycling with has to end up somewhere, so there will be Nitrites and then Nitrates.

Plants going skeletal sounds more like light problems then nutrient deficiency, although it is fair to say that plants introduced into an environment different from that they are used too will often die back before re-growing.