Okay well two days ago I started my first marine aquarium, I have 60 lbs of crushed coral, 20 lbs of live sand, and 15 lbs of live rock, thats all I can afford as of now, I have a protein skimmer, and a emp 400 filter. My salinity is at a awesome level, but everyone told me my amonia nitrate and nitrite lvls would be going up rapidly with the live rock and live sand.. My nitrate and nitrite are at dead 0 ppms and my ammonia is up to .50 ppms.. Is this normal? I was told at my LFS that the levels should sky rocket.. =/ And I dont know anybody locally to come check out my tank and see if everything is going correctly, I'm pretty much basing my desicions on a book I've purchased. If anybody has any tips or if you are in my area, please help me! I'm totally lost, and I've done everything STEP-BY-STEP from this book I own. My rock is from a well established tank, and my sand is a 20lb bag of aragonite from my LFS. Thanks a lot guys!
Starting off
- Thread starter xbambamx
- Start date
TekCat
New member
Everything is fine, your tank is just cycling. Ammonia rises, then when it starts to drop nitrites take over, same phase will happen later between nitrites and nitrates. It may take a while for tank to cycle (4 weeks on average). when nitrites and ammonia are both ZERO, and stay at this level for about a week do huge (50%-75% water change to export nitrates). Wait another week, making sure that ammonia and nitrites are ZERO, then your tank had officially cycled, and you may slooooowly add lifestock. 
-- edit --
You may want to take out crushed coral and replace it with regular arogonite sand. Crushed coral is too coarse and detrius junk will be sinking in it and rot there.
hth
-- edit --
You may want to take out crushed coral and replace it with regular arogonite sand. Crushed coral is too coarse and detrius junk will be sinking in it and rot there.
hth
