- Joined
- Oct 31, 2019
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- 132
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Hi there, I have a Red Sea Reefer 450 and I started cycling my tank about 2 weeks ago. It has plenty of sand dry live rock and a couple of marine pure bricks. I am using Microbacter start XLM and I have followed all the instructions correctly. I used pure ammonium chloride as my nitrogen source. I dosed the ammonia to around 3 mg/L and after 3 days it was completely gone as indicated by three different test kits. The Nitrites went up to 4 mg/L and after two days dropped to 2 mg/L (the Nitrates went up to 100+ mg/L and did not change). After a week and a half, the nitrites did not drop whatsoever. I then decided to do a 75 percent water last night to remove excess trites and trates. This morning I tested the water again and the trites and trates remained the EXACT SAME. I double-checked with two other types of test kits and they both gave the same results. Am I missing something? please advise ( the trites tested at 2mg/L and the trates tested at 60-100mg/L)