Puzzling...

Bacteria do not consume nitrate.

 

Bacteria may not "consume" nitrate, but anaerobic bacteria "converts" nitrate into nitrogen gas, so the result is the same.

 

+1, Gotta agree with the Rocketman

 

The conversion is very inept, not fast like was said here. Ammonia gets converted fast, nitrite gets converted fast, nitrate may never reduce in values because it is a very slow conversion. That's why nitrates build over time, even though you never see ammonia or nitrite. There's no way it was converted as soon as it was produced.

 

I don't believe the bacteria are consuming nitrate, at least not effectively. It's a by-product of the anaerobic reaction with ammonia and nitrite. You will probably see a rise in nitrate when you add livestock. Water changes and your refugium should take care of them.

 

Did I say that?

 

+1 to rocketman. I'd say you were done too. I'd add a hardy fish and watch the param's for a few weeks.

As for the cuc, you can go ahead and add them, you'll just have to feed them. Get some algae wafers and sheets(Nori from an asian market is fine and cheaper, just make sure it has no chemicals or preservatives, 100% seaweed), and some crab pellets or regular fish pellets. Or ya can add a small cuc for now and just wait a bit for the algae to get kicking!

Good luck And you'll prob still have a few algae blooms

 

There is certainly a way. If the liverock put in the tank has a large anaerobic colony and the relative amounts of ammonia and nitrite produced are small then this could most certainly happen.

 

If the ammonia and nitrite were small enough values so that the nitrate conversion did not get bottle-necked, you're tank is not going to have much of a biological filtration to support a fish.

This is where the term nitrate factory comes from. After my ammonia and nitrite is cleared, I usually do a 25% water change. That's going to be the best mode of transport out of your system. Nitrate values can literally take months to drop without intervention. This is why people with cycled established tanks have issues with nitrate, but never ammonia or nitrite (unless somethng is going wrong). The ammonia and nitrite are being quickly processed... the nitrate cannot keep up.

 

Thanks everyone for providing input... Though I have not yet introduced a fish in the tank I have aquired a small CUC (6 snails 3 HC's) and will sit and wait and test the water often.If all goes well I'll introduce my first clown this weekend. I'll purchase the wafers and pellets as I'm not 100% confident with LFS store telling me not to worry about the CUC starving.
I did a 15% WC this past weekend, at what point does the LR start to purple up? And will the base rock purple up or will it stay that bleached white color.