My tank has cycled!

[jphendren]

Yesterday I got an ammonia reading of 0, and a Nitrite reading of 0. My tank is a 55 gallon, that has about 43 gallons of actual water in it, so I changed out 16 gallons of water with new fresh saltwater. Today I check again, and again no ammonia or nitrite, but my nitrate is still 20ppm. Is this level okay, or do I need to do another water change? If so, how many gallons would you recommend? I don't want to do too much too fast and kill off my newly cycled tank.

Thanks,

Jared

 

[Ziggy953]

I would do another 16g water change. You aren't going to kill off the newly cycled tank. Congrats on getting the through the cycle time to get some live stock in there!

 

[iDream]

yeah i agree, you dont want the nitrates to get much higher than 20ppm

 

[jphendren]

I just went and picked up 15 gallons of Pacific Ocean water from my LFS. I just need to heat it up and then I'll do the change, hopefully that should knock down my nitrates enough that I can go get my Lionfish : )

Jared

 

[melosu58]

20 on nitrates is not a killer. I would do as Allen said and do another PWC and then go ahead and add some livestock. Good luck with the lionfish.