Nitrates during Cycling

I did start with tap water because tbh i was desperate, however i'm thinking it would be ok if i did water changes and topoff with distilled water, dechlorinator i first used was Tetra, i also only dare used it because i had a very little phosphates and nitrates (that was 0 before adding dechlorinator and salt hmmm), phosphates have always been 0-0.25 and i didn't have any kind of algae growing anywhere but a tiny greenish area in one of the rocks that isn't even spreading nor showing signs of growth.

today (10th day) of the cycle i'm having really good drops in ammonia, from 2.0 to 0.50 to 0.25 in just 2 days so i'm really considering not starting everything all again because ammonia only spiked twice and now it's dropping, don't think i will have another spike as it did take a long time for ammonia to drop so no more die offs, being that ammonia is dropping skyrocket and nitrites spiking skyrocket is another clue

there is no major die offs, the ONLY creatures i have noticed are tiny clams that we're closed when the rock was dry and opened up when i added water, i have no hitchhikers whatsoever other than the clams, and have sampled the rocks really well when i bought them and that's why i didn't bother keeping them in water or curing them much, they had tiny to no signs of life.


nitrites are way too high (off the chart), it's really red (close to ruby) and the highest colour on chart is a much lighter red which reads 3.3-33 ppm, so having nitrites to drop would take a long time,, patience patience..

other than that, pH: 8.2 Alk: 11-12 and we're very very stable, i had no changes in pH and alkalinity since i set up the tank, so to be honest i don't think it's a worry right now, as i said the rock didn't even have any life but the clams that we're closed, next time i setup a reef tank i will defo use ro/di from day one!