curing process

Well in my 2.5 gallon tank I am now into the nitrite--ate part of the curing after only 2 weeks. this 2.5gallon has a few pieces of tonga in it. ammonia is 0 but nitrites are .5ppm and nitrates are also .5ppm. there was ghost shrimp in this tank(4 to be exact) and 2 of them are still alive. they were in the tank when i put the rock in. kinda funny how the ghost shrimp survived. anyways on my 55 gallon the green water has disappeared and I have aquascaped the tank now. I basically made a mountain out of the backside of the tank and left the front and one side open(sand is in there of course). there is almost 70lbs of lr in this tank. I have not checked the nitrates and ites in this tank as the ammonia is still around 4ppm. yes 4 not .4 hehe. This is after 2 weeks. I just recently turned the lights back on on both tanks. so far I have not seen any life(with exception of ghost shrimp) in either tank. The ghost shrimp were a small experiment for me. I wanted to see how long I could keep fw ghost shrimp in saltwater. so far the 2 left have been in a 1.024 salinity with 72 degree water temp and a ph of 8.0(ph of ro water I use) for a month. be as this is the case I will probably start buying more ghost shrimp to feed the seahorses when my tank is finally ready for them. my next project is to figure out if I want vho or mh/pc lighting on this tank. I am leaning towards vho as I am not going to have any high light corals in this tank. on the other hand I may want clams in which case I would need the mh.