You should be testing ammonia right away. If it gets to 2 ppm I would suggest you do a 50-100% water change to lower it to prevent a toxic environment for the critters on/in the rock. Contrary to popular belief water changes will not slow down the nitrogen cycle. You will remove very little good bacteria doing a water change as these bacteria are primarily attached to surfaces, not in the free water column.
That's too bad the LFS won't test for ammonia and nitrite too. You will need an ammonia kit then (Salifert has always done me well here). To save money, skip the nitrite kit (nitrite isn't particularly toxic in the marine environment unlike freshwater). Once your ammonia reads 0 wait a week or two before adding your clean up crew just to be sure the cycle is fully complete. Test for nitrate before adding the CUC too, should be less than 10 ppm, but hopefully it will be close to 0. So for CUC, fish, and soft corals just test for ammonia and nitrate. Once you decide to add hard corals (LPS, SPS) you will need to test and supplement the big three (Ca, alk, mg) before adding those corals.
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~ Mindy
SPS fanatic.
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