Nitrates

[megadon]

My tank has been up and running now for just 5 days, I have the 60 lbs of established LR and 30 lbs of LS and my Nitrites are 0, the Nitrates however are high, do I need to change water, or ride it out and see what happens? Salinity at .027 and PH near 8.0. I still am using the regular lights from my fresh water days, when do I need to conver to "good" lighting? Will all my purple alge and coraline die from lack of lighting by then? Not looking to hurry things along, I just am looking for the next step. Thanks.

 

[carrie1429]

Your tank is still cycling so don't do a water change. It is going through the nitrate cycle and so your nitrates are suposed to be high. When your sand or crushed coral has a layer of brown on it (which is called diatoms) and when your readings are 0 then your cycle is finished. As for lighting you can convert to better lighting whenever you want. And yes your coraline algea will probably die without lighing after a long time.

 

[joerdie]

about your algie. it should die anyway due to the fact that your cycling the tank not much is going to live at all, let alone grow under those conditions.

 

[megadon]

The tank isn't really going through a full cycle, because I used 60 lbs of LR and 30 lbs of LS from a tank that has been up and running for about 8 years. We'll see what happens.

 

[frankl15207]

High nitrates that soon indicate to me that there may be another problem. What kind of water did you use to set up the tank? Nitrates should be showing up at the end of the cycle and even then shouldn't be high. Even if the live rock was perfect and you didn't go through much of a cycle, the nitrates should not be high yet. Your PH is also a little low. It should be above 8.0. Closer to 8.3.

 

[fshhub]

if your lr was mail ordered or uncured, you may be experiencing die off and or curing, not to mention a cycle, IMO, even with ls and lr(esp if it is uncured or mail ordered, it will have die off) that the adds are you will still have a cycle, the glass and other equipment still nedds to become populated with bacteria too
and to follow up, what is high?
also have you tested your water against another source(like an lfs or friend who has a tester)?