Darren&Candace
Reefing newb
Hello, My wife and I are very new to all this, and we have had some advice from the store where we got the aquarium from, but they always seem soooo very busy and not soooo very helpful with our questions. I realize that some of our questions may seem quite basic, but they are still questions that we are struggling to get the right answers for. We had our lovely aquarium delivered and set up about 6 weeks ago .... since that time we have seen the water cycle take place as our nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia all zeroed out. We were then told things were good and we should put in the clean up crew .... they have now been in there for 2 weeks, and while our nitrite levels still are showing very low - zero ... our nitrate and ammonia levels have begun to rise. ammonia levels I would say are around 4 - 4.5 and nitrates are maybe around 10 or so. I understand that to lower the nitrate level to do a water change, but I'm more concerned right now about the ammonia levels - first off as to why they have risen so much, and secondly is the partial water change the best way to cope with this? We were thinking to be adding fish soon, but now am very hesitant as we can't seem to figure out if its time or not. Can someone please help us out .... are we on the right track??