Phosphate during cycle

[JPergamo]

Still fairly new here but happy to be back in the hobby. So my tank has been cycling for about a week, using doctor tims ammonia and one and only. My ammonia is still up around 1ppm so I'm nowhere near ready for livestock l, I'm going to really take my time and let the system settle in. In the meantime I tested phosphate just for the goof and saw that it is up around 1 with the salifert test. This may he from using old rock that I had in a freshwater system. I gave it an acid bath but it may still be leaching phosphate I'm sure. I want to get some opinions on if I should knock it down now with GFO (which I can run on and off really easy with a manifold) or wait until the cycle is done? Any links or experience is appreciated! Thanks a lot happy reefing!

 

[Diesel]

Let it cycle first.
If you have a skimmer run that as it will help removing the Po4.
Of course with a high Po4 you don't want to run your lights at all, with no life stock it ain't necessary any way.
Now tell me this you used the bottle of One and Only on your tank, how big is your tank in Gallons?
How long after that did you dosed the ammonia, and what was the ammonia reading after 24hrs?

 

[JPergamo]

The tank is a 180 with a 75 gallon sump plumbed to the basement. My baby. The system with rock is approximately 230-240 gallons my my estimate so I used 2 bottles of 1 and only and dosed the ammonia the same day to about the same 1ppm. I have had my skimmer running to fine tune it and to maybe start removing some po4 during the cycle. I have had my lights on just because I had set them up and it has been part of the process of getting things running but I will kill them if ypu think it's a good idea for a while

 

[JPergamo]

For the past 5 days or so since I have dosed the ammonia it has remained at around 1ppm so I am just monitoring that waiting for the bacteria. I also just added a marine pure block to colonize bacteria fully.

 

[Diesel]

What do you use to test for ammonia?
What is your Nitrite N02 at?

 

[JPergamo]

Just the api test for ammonia, nitrite with api 0 nitrate still zero with salifert. Po4 way up around 1 with salifert. Like I said it was an old system kick started again. I'm in no rush so I am considering waiting to cycle then just clobbering it with GFO before I add anything non sterile that can bring algae

 

[Diesel]

Algae will come alright even with nothing bringing in.
It's weird that your ammonia wouldn't drop after a day.
Or your api test kit got bad and you have a wrong reading.
Go out and see if a LFS can test ammonia and Nitrite for you or a fellow hobbyist near by.

 

[JPergamo]

Ok will do. Like I said I know the api test isn't great but I was going to just give it time to see if it came down. My skimmer is actually making skimmate super light green. After running the whole system for about 5 days there is still no algae even with the phosphate high so I assumed it may be because of the high ammonia still. I don't really know why I still have up around 1ppm ammonia though and I will need to figure out how to check it with another kit or lfs I suppose

 

[JPergamo]

Thank you diesel for the response from a fellow blue liner from ny.