My aquapod water parameters

[MedcinMn]

My 24 AP has been set up for about 6 days. The day I set it up, I seeded the sand with 2 cups of sand from an established tank, and last night I added LR from an established system. Today, my readings are: SG 1.023 (via refractometer), pH 8.0, Amm 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0, Cal 380, dKH 7.4 (all tests done with Salifert test kits). I added 1 tsp superbuffer today, will retest pH and dKH tomorrow. Questions:

1. My ammonia has been at 0 since I set the tank up, when do you think I'll see a rise?

2. I make my own ro/di, and understand the pH of ro/di is naturally low. When I mix my salt, do I need to mix some superbuffer in with it to bring up the pH, or will the salt mix (IO) take care of this?

Thx,

Aaron

 

[HowardW]

What is on the live rock.......anything? You need something in the tank to produce ammonia and start the cycle in motion, sand and plain rock won't do it if they don't have any life to start the cycle..

Your salt mix should have all the necessary buffers making any other buffers unnecessary. You will also not need to add any buffers when adding RO/DI water that evaporates in the tank.

 

[MedcinMn]

The only thing I can see on the rock are some tube worms and a couple mushrooms. The tank I took it from is 4 years old. I assume there's a lot of things on the rock I can't see.