Ammonia 0 nitrites 0 and nitrates 40

Kitten1786 · Nov 2, 2021

I purchased my 150 gallon about 2 months ago. I didn't get it up and filled with water until last week saturday October 23rd. I had made RODI water and had my live rock in it for about 4 weeks prior to putting it in the tank. I tested my water parameters today and I'm getting 0 ammonia 0 nitrites and 40 nitrates. I did put 2 green chromis in to help cycle the tank. Do you think it's cycled? I never saw any nitrites but I didn't test until the tank had been filled a week. Do you think it cycled in the garbage bins with the live rock while I was waiting for the plumbing to be finished?

Kitten1786 · Nov 2, 2021

Kitten1786 said:
I purchased my 150 gallon about 2 months ago. I didn't get it up and filled with water until last week saturday October 23rd. I had made RODI water and had my live rock in it for about 4 weeks prior to putting it in the tank. I tested my water parameters today and I'm getting 0 ammonia 0 nitrites and 40 nitrates. I did put 2 green chromis in to help cycle the tank. Do you think it's cycled? I never saw any nitrites but I didn't test until the tank had been filled a week. Do you think it cycled in the garbage bins with the live rock while I was waiting for the plumbing to be finished? I did put biospira in the tank to help establish it and I used some live rock from my already established 20 gallon tank. I also had a frozen shrimp in the tank for 5 days (I heard it helped the sand settle and it worked!) Could I have missed the nitrite spike? Yesterday I had a reading of ammonia-5 nitrite-0 and nitrates 20

CoralB · Dec 16, 2021

I would say that if you put your live rock in RODI water that you killed off any live beneficial bacteria necessary to cycle the rock let alone the water . Please give the parameters in the tank now starting with the salinity.phosphates , ammonia , nitrate etc.