Water Testing

[Sam1969]

My tank has been running about a month now with nothing in it except LR and LS. What should I be testing the water for before putting in any livestock ?

[theredben]

Firstly, are you putting fish in first or just the start of your cleanup crew?

If you are putting just fish in then you need to check if your ammonia, and nitrites are at 0, and your nitrates are below 50.

But if you are putting inverts in your tank you need to make sure that the ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates are all at zero.

[Sam1969]

Thanks ... I'm just starting with my cleanup crew first, once I have that established I plan on adding fish and coral.

[justinl]

For now, the most important ones are ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. You should have tested those throughout the cycle, but no worries. test them now and get back to us before adding livestock.

you should also test the other big water params. like salinity (use a refractometer), temp, and pH.

[kwirky]

it's not "perfect" but some invertibrates can withstand nitrates of around 3ppm or so. make sure it's zero ammonia and nitrite though for at least a week straight.