need help in tank i just bought with water

hi
im pretty new to this site,I just bought a 120 gal tank with a 20 gal sump,
i brought back about 75 gal og the old water and about 100 pds of the live rock, and kept about 4 gal of the sump water, i have fish in it now that came with thw tank,my nitrate is 20 my amnonia is 1.
my nitrite is 0 and my ph is 8.4 . my question is . is this safe and how can i get my ammonia and nitrate better, and do you think the tank will recycle? can someone please help me. i dont want to kill my new friends or make them suffer
thanks
Dana

 

30-40% water changes. And make sure your salinity and temperature of the new water is the same before adding.

 

Agreed. Just keep doing water changes. That should help. Do you have a skimmer? Or any filtration other than the sump?

 

thanks.how much water should i change and do you think my tank will recycle. i only had 75 gallons of the original water and i set it up on monday 2-21-11. yes i do have a skimmer it is the coralife superskimmer 125.

 

Sounds like it's already recycling if you have ammonia. As everyone else said, do some water changes.

 

buy some live bacteria like smart start by tlc or something similar . it will recycle your tank in a few hours and put your ammonia at 0. i used smart start by tlc to start 2 tanks and it works like a charm

 

The tank is going through a minicycle due to the move. Doing water changes at this point can drag the cycling process out longer and can be more dangerous. I would leave it be, it should be over shortly. How bad was the sand bed disturbed during the move?

 

The sand bed was disturbed pretty bad it got pretty cold
Looks like one fish is getting ich. What should I do
I don't want fish to suffer.

 

i wouldnt do waterchanges either, and if you did i would do tiny ones..i would look into getting some live bacteria like previously said..kent and instant ocean makes ones that are easy to come by..

they also have some ammo pack things..the little bags of ammonia lock..not sure how much they will help but their cheap and something to look into

 

Welcome to the forum !

Agreed, no water change let the mini-cycle do its thing. We would have suggested rinsing the old sand – but that is a moot point right now. Your parameters are showing the start of a very small cycle. Can you post your other parameters? Temp salinity, dkh, ph ect. A bag of live sand will help a great deal - petco and the like have these for around $30, the bacteria will really help you out.