My Everything is Spiking???

[Spence24]

Is this possible.

P.H.- 8.4 thats ok
Ammonia - 0.50 ppm seems ok for cycle
Nitrite - 2 to 2.2 ppm umm thats good I would think
Nitrate - Somewhere between 80 and 100 ppm!!!! Wait what! Is that right? I am only like 10 days into my cycle. But I added a 100 lbs. of lr 2 days ago. I will retest tonight if these sound crazy.

 

[cuttlegirl]

Patience, patience... Didn't you get live rock shipped from somewhere? If so, you could be experiencing some die-off. This will affect your levels. Remember that it takes weeks not days to cycle a tank.

 

[Spence24]

Yes I know, but is it normal to already have a nitrate level let alone 80 ppm!!

 

[Animal Mother]

Sure. There's probably a lot of sponge and other things in the rock dying off, and 100lbs is a lot of rock with a lot of dying stuff... not surprising.

 

[Spence24]

Ok... cool I was just wondering b/c I thought that 5 ppm was extremely high and that nitrate wasn't supposed to appear until like day 27.

 

[cuttlegirl]

Think about how long the rock was in the package, traveling to your house. The temperature fluctuated, the oxygen levels were low, so a lot of things are going to die on your rock. Also, your rock was "uncured" vs. the "cured" rock at the LFS. You are going to have more things die on your rock, it is going to affect your nitrate levels. It is normal.

 

[Spence24]

Well my rock was cured in fiji and then sent here.

 

[cuttlegirl]

Ok, there is still going to be a lot of die-off from the traveling.

See this thread for more on this discussion.

Tank cycling and maturation

 

[Spence24]

I guess I would classify it as partially curred.

 

[Spence24]

I just didn't think it would show up this early, I'm pumped.

 

[Animal Mother]

Even if fully cured live rock is out of water for a few minutes there will be some die-off. Some people make the mistake of leaving their live rock out while they rearrange their tanks, and find they have a cycle soon after they're done.