Amonia/Nitrite readings

[breezygyrl]

I have a 55 gal tank that was previously set up just relocated to my home. We managed to reuse about 25 gallons of the original water and i filled it the rest of the way today mixing 1 cup salt to 2 1/2 gal of water. I tested my amonia level and it reads .25, which i was suprised that it was so close to perfect, and the nitrate level was right on 0 with the salidity reading at aprox 1.020 which from what i see is pretty good for a tank only a few hours old..(smile) will these numbers fluxiate much, i was under the impression that they should be severly high and would settle back down, is this a normal situation, gimme some feedback and let me know what to expect thanks guys...

 

[808smokey]

Your levels with change but not over night. It might take a week before you see the ammonia spike. It might only be a small/short cycle since you kept so much water from the last setup. Throw a piece of cocktail shrimp in there to jump start it or use your Live rock. If you used tap water expect an algea bloom (Brown algea) that's OK, I did. It's just ugly for a week or two. It'll go away on it's own. You might want to consider distilled water from the grocery store. If you have to buy a fish get a damsel, most anything else will die in the cycle (ammonia spike). Also if you want any hermit crabs or snails you should raise the salt level from 1.020 to 1.023-1.025 otherwise that should be fine with only fish. Just be patient or you'll spend a lot of $$$

 

[breezygyrl]

thanks so much fo rthe imput smokey. I guess addind snails already was a bad idea then huh? there is also a damsel that tagged along in the move, poor guys been threw hell..

 

[beaslbob]

I moved a simple salt tank from rapid city South Dakota to alamogordo New Mexico back in 1980. It was winter and below 0 in rapid. When I resetup the tank there was no nitrIte spike. So you may not have any spike especially with reusing the tank water.
The .25 ammonia could be a false low. some test kits do that.
look for a nitrIte spike if any in about 3-4 days. not feeding the fish for a week would be a good idea. But basically if you reused most of the aquarium stuff, chances are no spike will occur.

 

[jedininja]

I would not use tap water. It will create the algae bloom, but contains many elements that will build up in your tank over time that are very detriemtnal to your fish and inverts. Copper, heavy metals, flouride, as well as nitrates.
Other than that, good advice some smokey.

 

[breezygyrl]

so now that i already filled the tank with tap water...

how do i help out the booboo i made then, is there something i can do to avoid the algea or harmful stuff to come...

 

[beaslbob]

Originally posted by breezygyrl
so now that i already filled the tank with tap water...

how do i help out the booboo i made then, is there something i can do to avoid the algea or harmful stuff to come...
you could make sure you have active plant life. That way the ugly plant life (algae) will starve.

 

[jedininja]

Plants will not do enough to filter out everything in the water. Just start doing your water changes and top offs with RO water and you will be ok.

 

[breezygyrl]

ok so a mixture of plants and RO?? some suggestions for good plants, RO is just distilled water i assume... (smile) so very new to all this.. Thanks everyone for your inputs, means a lot..

 

[beaslbob]

Originally posted by breezygyrl
ok so a mixture of plants and RO?? some suggestions for good plants, RO is just distilled water i assume... (smile) so very new to all this.. Thanks everyone for your inputs, means a lot..
I like caulpera profilera. in a fuge brillo pad is good because it takes on the shape of the container.
If you must add them to the display, I highly suggest you culture them in a simple seperate container. That way each week you can transfer some to the display. The fish will eat the macros. but in my system I eventually had enough macros in the display the new grow was more than the fish were eating.