my two day old tank has nitrite/nitrate but no ammonia

[mikekr]

I'm concerned that I might have missed something while testing a new aquarium. It's a 55 gal that I put 80lbs live rock, about 60 lbs of the "live" sand from the plastic bags at lfs and half a shrimp from the supermarket in the tank. This was about 48 hours ago. The water in the tank is RO DI from my filter.

Tonight was my 3rd series of tests. Each day the temp was about 80.5, sg was 1.025, pH was 8.04 and ammonia has been 0.

I did the first tests of nitrite and nitrate tonight and the result was 0.1 and 5ppm respectively using Salifert tests. Everything I've read says that I should have seen ammonia before the nitrite.

For what it's worth, the lights have been off and although I have a skimmer, it's been off also.

Any help as to what might be going on is appreciated.

[bertoni]

That's not all that surprising. Fairly fresh live rock is often ready to do filtration when acquired. I'd remove what's left of the shrimp and just wait a while.

[mikekr]

Do you think the ammonia came and went so quickly that I didn't test it while it was there or are you saying that because of the live rock, there won't be an ammonia spike at all while it cycles?

[bertoni]

There might never have been a measureable ammonia spike, and there might never be one. I'd wait for three weeks or so, to be sure that something large in the live rock doesn't die and spike the system.

[tmz]

As noted well cured rock may not have any die off or decaying material to spike ammonia and should be loaded with enough bacteria to start handling any in your tank. Good luck.

[mikekr]

I took the shrimp out of the tank, thanks for the replies,

[george81]

let you re tank cycle...dont add anything until ALL readings are zero