curing live rock and phosphate question?

[Justin....#JAMAS]

so, ive been curing 2 small pieces of live rock that came out of another reefers sump with coraline all over, it has been curing in one of my buckets for a total of right at 1 month....over that month ive done water changes, scrubbing the rock and dipping it to rinse off whatever may be on it, and switching it into freshly mixed saltwater, than cover it up with a powerhead for flow, for 1 month........ive tested po4 a few times through this journey and it was around 1ppm, but it has been at .5ppm now for the last 2 weeks.........should i wait until it drops to 0ppm to add the live rock to my display, or would it be safe to go ahead and incorporate into my aquascape in my display now? I dont have any tests to test for ammonia.....just the main three and po4, pH and nitrite....and the po4 salifert test i have is dangerously low..any suggestions?

 

[saltyhog]

What volume of water is the rock in? 0.5 ppm is pretty high, what test kit are you using for PO4?

If your tank is large and these rocks are small it may not be a problem at all unless your PO4 is already high in the tank.

 

[Denisk]

What do you mean you were curing live rock that came out of someone’s sump? If it was fully live and it came from a tank that was fully up and running I see no problem adding it to your current tank. Unless you were worried about carrying in any diseases? I’ve even thrown in dry rock into my 90 gallon as long as it wasn’t a lot like a piece or two.

 

[Justin....#JAMAS]

i have a 75 Gallon display, with a 20 gallon sump below.....heres a pic of the two rocks when i started and than a pic of them taken just a second ago....iam using a salifert test kit.....i have readings of po4 in my display of 0 ppm, and the two rocks are pretty small. they are just in a 5 gallon bucket with a powerhead! there was black spots and alot of detritus i guess that came off and they are pretty clean now....and just took a po4 test to be as current butt possible and the color of the outcome looked to be between 0.25-0.5ppm

heres before pics...the two rocks are great pourous rock, and they look fairly mature when i got them from a reefer that was done with the hobby

and here is the two rocks now....just took these pics tonight

 

[Justin....#JAMAS]

What do you mean you were curing live rock that came out of someone’s sump? If it was fully live and it came from a tank that was fully up and running I see no problem adding it to your current tank. Unless you were worried about carrying in any diseases? I’ve even thrown in dry rock into my 90 gallon as long as it wasn’t a lot like a piece or two.

yeah the guy threw a 90 gallon tall tank with stand and sump and all of his equipment to his curb for the trash guys to pick up...heaters and all......so i assumed that something in his tank broke out with either algae or some kind of disease so yes to be safe i cure any rock especially coming from a situation like that bro....just always better to be careful instead of just throwing whatever i find in my display lol

 

[Justin....#JAMAS]

just wanna be careful and dont def dont want any kind of outbreak at all really so didnt know if the rock releasing po4 of 0.25-0.5 ppm would be a problem

 

[Justin....#JAMAS]

can someone tell me if these two small rocks leaching that small amount of po4 into the display that big of a deal? @Randy Holmes-Farley