29 gallon not cycling but diatoms?!

[Tommy081708]

I've had this nano set up for over a month now, I have about ten lbs live rock and ten base rock. I've added substrate from my mature tank as you can see in the pic as well as a few pieces of rock plus I ghost feed weekly. No signs of any parameters! Just did my tests and zero everything. Could it have cycled and just have no nitrates? I also have diatom growth which doesn't make sense to me if it hasn't cycled. Please help!

[Tommy081708]

Just did a low range red sea nitrate test and they are present, around 5 ppm.

[thegrun]

I would add enough pure ammonia to boost the ammonia up to 2ppm. If the tank is cycled the ammonia will drop back to zero within 24 hours. If not wait for the ammonia and subsequent nitrites to both drop to zero. I suspect the tank never needed to cycle. Use pure ammonia without surfactants (available at most hardware stores). To be sure the ammonia does not contain surfactants shake the bottle and if it bubbles up like dish soap it has surfactants in it, pure ammonia will not have bubbles. To raise 30gallons of water from 0 to 2 ppm ammonia you would need to add 0.25 grams (2.5 ml) of standard 10% pure ammonia.