New tank chemistry question

Hi people, I'm new to the hobby.. Just set up a 2foot cube saltwater tank with sump in the cupboard underneath.
It's been up and running for only one week but I thought I'd post my water level results to see if I'm heading in the right direction!

PH 8.3
Ammonia 3.0mg
Nitrite 2.0mg
Nitrate 100mg

As I said I'm new to this and I'm pretty sure I did the tests accurately, but I thought ammonia should spike and decrease before nitrite and nitrate spiked. Your advice would be much appreciated, oh bye the way I'm using tropic marin test kits.. My LFS guy said they were the best?

 

That looks about right to me, Im sure someone else will chime in with more detailed info.. Just dont add any fish before you get Ammonia and Nitrite down..

 

I've never seen these test results represented in milligrams before. ???

If the tank has been running a week, it's surprising that you have nitrates showing up already. ???

 

I agree, your tests should be read in ppm form for example,
Amonia3.0ppm
Check out the unit of measure on your color chart and see if it has (ppm) on it.
What type and brand est kit are you using?
Your nitrates shouldn't be showing up this early especially at those readings.
Ideally, you should read
Ammonia:0ppm
Nitrite:0ppm
Nitrate: 10-20ppm

 

My test kit is a tropic marin expert testset. And yes the readings are also ppm, it says mg/l but has ppm in brackets

 

Well my test results are a long way off what you said they should be like.. Are those reading of 0, 0 and 10-20 what the tank should be when cycle has finished? Why would my tank be showing such high readings so early? Good or bad thing?

 

A tank cycle should take at least a month, and if it takes 3 months, that's also an acceptable time frame.

A cycle is complete when ammonia and nitrite have become undectectable, and nitrate begins to accumulate. This means zero ammonia, zero nitrite, and repeated presence of nitrates, which may slowly increase over time.

A tank won't cycle in one week, unless you have moved nearly all the live rock and sand from an established, healthy tank.

If your test kits indicate your cycle is through, I'd question the kits, or the method of testing. Take the water to an LFS. They'll test for these 3 things for free.

Good luck.

 

Well I know my tank isn't cycled cos it's only been a week.. Just more trying to check if it's heading in the right direction? I just didn't think all 3 of those parameters should be so high at the same time and if there was any reason for this unusual start to my cycle?

 

Mg/l is the equivelent of ppm.....

As far as the tests are concerned.... the levels seem awfully HIGH to me esp the NO3!
How did you cycle the tank? How much rock did you add? Have you ran filtration? If so what? What type of water did you use?
100 ppm of NO3 just seems outrageous...

Tropic Marin tests can be tough to use, so make sure you are doing them right. I don't mean that in a insulting way, its just that they can be tricky to get the hand of and that could be scewing your results.
As far as all levels high like that... It is very odd, not impossible but odd. Many times if you have an elevated N02 level the NO3 level will also show high or just exaggerated.

I would bring in the sample for the LFS to test, then go from there. You might need to do a couple water changes to dilute that NO3, otherwise when the tank is ready to go the NO3 levels are going to spur some killer algae.

Good luck!

 

started tank with conditioned tap water, filtration, skimmer, powerheads, pump and lighting have been running since it was installed just over a week ago. I have about 20kgs of live rock and aragonite sand