after 3 weeks, amonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 10?

[jayb12]

so my 250 gal has been runnin for just under 3 weeks now. ive got about 100lbs of mature live rock from another tank of mine as well as aprox 60lbs of live sand. i never seen an amonia spike or and spike at all... the last few days nitrates have showed up....


is my tank safe enough to start adding some more delicate stuff like corals?

[HighlandReefer]

What are your phosphate and salinity levels at?

[jayb12]

salinty is 1.023 and phosphates .25

[HighlandReefer]

If you want to put coral in your tank you will need to increase the salinity. I keep mine around that found in most marine water: 1.026 - 1.027.

Your phosphate is high for sps coral in particular. You really want to keep it less than 0.03 ppm. Running GFO will help decrease your levels.

Some hobbyists keep their nitrates higher than the recommend level of less than 0.2 ppm, particularly for the soft corals like Xenia.

Randy goes into more details in these articles:

Reef Aquarium Water Parameters
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.htm

Phosphate and the Reef Aquarium
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-09/rhf/index.php

Nitrate in the Reef Aquarium
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/august2003/chem.htm

The Complete Nitrogen Cycle
http://web.archive.org/web/20030510131423/http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish/library/articleview2.asp?Section=Aquarium+Frontiers+--+Biochemistry+of+Aquaria&RecordNo=3090

[jayb12]

thanks for the help,
i have an emperor angel so lots of corals i wish i had i wont be able to keep :(