How is this even possible??!!

[Tommy Gether]

Ok so SEVEN days ago I set up my saltwater tank, I have had fresh water tanks for over 30 years so I know about ammonia and nitrates and tank cycles... Two weeks ago I decided to turn the 55 gallon into a saltwater tank, took the tank down and gave it a very good cleaning,, then let it set and dry as i shopped around for sand that i wanted, I ended up getting sand from petco, 80 pounds NEW SAND, with NO live sand. I did shop around for established live rock and settled on 20 pounds from FJW and I bought another 75 pounds form someone with an established tank that had been up for years. Now last Tuesday I had it all set up live rock in and all and beings I wanted no corals I have a 30 gallon wetdry running. I was sure by next month sometime i would be able to start fish shopping.

The guy I bought the rock from was tearing down his tank to convert to fresh water and he had 2 very small fish, one was a Green Chromis, and the other was a little damsel and there was 6 hermets in the tank. Now the guys said "if you want these fish then take them, cause if not,, uhhhh i think ill have to run them to the pet store or something" now the tank they was in was horribal and you could tell had bee neglected for months. so I knew soon as i gave him the cash for the live rock the fish would prolly be flying out the backdoor within minutes. So even though I knew my tank wasnt ready I tried to atleast do all i could to give the fish a chance.

Now here is the kicker.. that was SEVEN days ago, and my water readings are ammonia ZERO, nitrates ZERO, nitrites ZERO.. now I have done 3 10 percent water changes every 2 days since setting it up.. but no way should i be getting zero readings across the board,, THERE HAVE BEEN FISH IN THERE FOR A WEEK!.. something should be showing. SOMETHING. .. heck I even thought maybe my test kit got old so I bought a new one,, SAME READINGS!.. someone please explain how this is happening.

[flipside]

The rock may have helped.

[Darbex]

+1 if the rock was from established tanks then you will already have the bacteria ready for the bio-load. I would give it another week or two just to be sure before slowly adding in new fish.

[johnnymisty]

The rock may have helped.

Ya that live rock may have helped but I would say go slow adding stuff so nothing bad happens

[Tommy Gether]

yeah I went with established rock to speed up the process on purpose, but I would think I would see SOME numbers after a week,, atleast some, SOMEWHERE.. just seems odd to me is all

[aquabee]

Absolutely be cautious, but that sounds frikkin awesome!

[Churty]

+1 if the rock was from established tanks then you will already have the bacteria ready for the bio-load. I would give it another week or two just to be sure before slowly adding in new fish.

+1, the rock is ready for the couple fish you have in the tank.

[Totenkampf]

I dont know salt, but i would think that you would see some nitrates even if the live rock is doing its job on such a small bioload? Are you running carbon too?

[rage]

Nitrate

I dont know salt, but i would think that you would see some nitrates even if the live rock is doing its job oin such a small bioload? Are you running carbon too?

I agree, I would test for at least nitrate again with a different test kit.
The bacterias in live rocks only remove ammonia and nitrite and leave behind nitrate.

In an established salt tank, nitrate maybe 0 but that is only if the tank has something that remove nitrate. ie, macro algae, mangroves, deep sand bed ...

[TiAg]

I used all live wet rock and sand when I did my tank and it cycled really quick. I would be careful for the next couple weeks and keep an eye on it before putting anything expensive in there, and the fish will help the cycle too.

[Tommy Gether]

Well at noon I ran up to FJW, bought a Niger and a baby clown. Just did another water check..... ALL ZEROS!.. with 2 test kits!

[Tommy Gether]

what i dont get is there is no carbon or anything in the setup,, where are the nitrates?.. mind you the tank has had 2 fish and 6 hermits for a week,, should be some nitrates.

[mnemenoi]

From my understanding (and I am really a FW enthusiast) most of the biological activity occurs in Live rock, thus why most SW HOB/canisters suggest replacing all the media with LR rubble. My guess would be that your LR is large enough (enough bacteria/surface area) to handle your small bioload and that should you ever see any numbers, it would be due to introducing extra bioload, and a small spike until your bacteria are able to colonize a larger area to handle the larger volume. I myself am surprised, but had never put 2 and 2 together about the smaller pico's only using LR as a filter, but it made better sense once I began thinking it through with your situation. Most of the HOB's for the small pico's are for mechanical filtration and little else.

[rage]

Well at noon I ran up to FJW, bought a Niger and a baby clown. Just did another water check..... ALL ZEROS!.. with 2 test kits!

What kind of test kits do you use?

Should have taken some of your water and ask them to test it for you.

[Tommy Gether]

i have an api master kit and a tetra kit,, there is no way that the kits can be testing bad, not 2 different kits the test have to be correct.