what are my water parameters telling me?

[reef tank 2.0]

you might recall some of my posts over the past month or so about my tank cycling parameters and current readings since then.
with one fish so far in my display tank, he seems happy and certainly doesn't show any negative signs that would make believe my system is in horrible condition, or at least dangerous.

I am continuing to do about 30-40 gallon water changes each week. In doing so, I test the water parameters 24 hours afterwards. When I do so, there are a few readings that I'd like to get an opinion on. items in red

All my test results are coming from Salifert test kits, except for the nitrates, those are from Hanna

salinity - 1.025
temperature - 78
ph - 8.3
nitrites - 4+, vibrant purple - this reading never seems to go up or down
nitrates - 31 - this has continued to drop. going from 75, down to 50, down to what is now 31

As mentioned, I am not over concerned yet, unless you think I should be. but the nitrites never move, and the trates are dropping. Since I think I might have a bad ammonia test kit, I have stopped testing for that using my Salifert kit. I have a new one on it's way, that should be here tomorrow. I have been using ammonia test strips daily just to see if I get any readings from that, which I don't.

 

[BubblesandSqueak]

you might recall some of my posts over the past month or so about my tank cycling parameters and current readings since then.
with one fish so far in my display tank, he seems happy and certainly doesn't show any negative signs that would make believe my system is in horrible condition, or at least dangerous.

I am continuing to do about 30-40 gallon water changes each week. In doing so, I test the water parameters 24 hours afterwards. When I do so, there are a few readings that I'd like to get an opinion on. items in red

All my test results are coming from Salifert test kits, except for the nitrates, those are from Hanna

salinity - 1.025
temperature - 78
ph - 8.3
nitrites - 4+, vibrant purple - this reading never seems to go up or down
nitrates - 31 - this has continued to drop. going from 75, down to 50, down to what is now 31

As mentioned, I am not over concerned yet, unless you think I should be. but the nitrites never move, and the trates are dropping. Since I think I might have a bad ammonia test kit, I have stopped testing for that using my Salifert kit. I have a new one on it's way, that should be here tomorrow. I have been using ammonia test strips daily just to see if I get any readings from that, which I don't.

30-40 gallon changes with one fish? How big is the tank?

 

[reef tank 2.0]

Ha ha. Ya. Just trying to get my numbers down since cycling with dry rock and dry sand.

It's an 80 gallon display tank roughly 150 gallon system (including sump)

 

[killer2001]

Don't test for nitrates if nitrites are showing up, numbers will be inflated otherwise. When I was cycling my tank I didn't test for nitrates until I was certain my nitrites were at 0.