High nitrate in live rock curing tub

[drewwCh]

Hiya!
After breaking down my neglected tank and taking a break for a few months, I've decided to jump right back into the hobby.
This time around I'm going with a DIY 10 gallon AIO with live rock.

So about the rock, I got ocean live rock that's had its hitchhikers removed. It was sent overnight in damp newspaper inside a trash bag.
I added the rock to a tub and overnight nitrates have just exploded, it's now at 50ish ppm

So is this rock safe to add to my tank now that I know it's capable of converting ammonia to nitrite to nitrate efficiently?
Or should I just wait a couple more days to transfer the rock?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Spare time]

As long as your not detecting ammonia or nitrite I'd say sure. You can replace the water and see if the numbers still go up. It is typical for live rock arriving from shipping to have die off.

 

[LRT]

Where did you order from?

 

[drewwCh]

Where did you order from?

I ordered from a reef vendor here in my country. He takes it directly from the ocean and stores it in a tub at his store.

 

[Chrisv.]

Make sure you're also testing nitrITE. Nitrite will mess with the results of most nitrate test kits.

 

[drewwCh]

Make sure you're also testing nitrITE. Nitrite will mess with the results of most nitrate test kits.

Noted, didn't know about that.

 

[LRT]

I ordered from a reef vendor here in my country. He takes it directly from the ocean and stores it in a tub at his store.

Definetely get some kind of low light over the rock. Be sure to check the rock for any stinky, dieing, decaying corals, clams, bivalves etc. Make sure your not crushing anything in the tub. Its very hard to differentiate at first. Could take a week or 2 but do it daily until ammonia zeroes out. This is how I cure my ocean rock.