12Gallon Nano- day 6

[Wattie]

My 12g nano has been running for 6 days now with 5kg cured live rock and 5kg live sand.

ammonia and nitrate have always been nil. Ph 8.1-8.3. Sg 1.025.
nitrate this morning after a 40% water change yesterday is around 2PPM.

Is it safe to add some stock just now, or should I conduct another water change to get nitrates to 0 and wait another week....

Appreciate any help.
cheers Wattie

[thegrun]

I would add either a dead raw shrimp or some pure ammonia and see what happens. If you addd the shrimp, wait a week, if you don't see any ammonia then you are good to start slowly adding livestock. If you go the ammonia route add enough ammonia to take the tank up to 2ppm. If the tank is cycled the ammonia should drop back to zero within 24 hours, if it doesn't wait for the ammonia and nitrites to drop to zero. Use pure ammonia without surfactants (available at most hardware stores). To be sure the ammonia does not contain surfactants shake the bottle and if it bubbles up like dish soap it has surfactants in it, pure ammonia will not have bubbles. To raise 100 gallons of water from 0 to 2 ppm ammonia you would need to add 0.8 grams (8 ml) of standard 10% pure ammonia.