Phosphate in a new aquarium???

[Mr. Maahhc]

Hi guys-
Brand new to the community and salt water aquaria as well! I have a 75g saltwater tank with a 30g sump. It is only 1 week old and has no inhabitants other than those that came with the 75 lbs of cured live rock. I'm using only RO/DI water- salinity (1.025), ph (8.1) are good. 3 days ago I added a couple frozen shrimp to start the n-cycle. To this point I've seen no ammonia/nitrite/nitrate but just had a diatom bloom and have 1ppm phosphate. Should I be worried about this or can this be normal? Should it be treated? When should I expect to see a start in the cycle? Lastly, are the shrimp a bad idea- should they be pulled? Thank you so so so so much!
Marc

 

[Reef Frog]

Depending on how long the completely cured Live Rock was out of the water, it's possible that the ammonia & nitrate readings will never show because the bacteria that process them remained intact. Or you may have had a quick mini cycle that happened so fast you didn't catch it.

I'd leave the shrimp in there and see if the ammonia & nitrites remain at 0ppm. If this is the case and you see nitrates start to rise, you'll know the cycle has completed and you can add some snails. In a week or two you'll know for sure.

As for the phosphate reading, it could be a testing error. Or it could be real & coming from decaying organic matter on the rocks' surface. Once you confirm it, there are several methods available to drive and keep levels down.

Oh - welcome to RC!

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Personally I would ditch the shrimp and add pure ammonia to 2 ppm and if it goes to 0 in 24 hours your tank is cycled. If it doesn't you just started the cycle with the ammonia. You can buy this in any grocery or hardware store in the cleaning section. Read the labels to make sure there are no additives like scents or others besides the ammonia. Just Google ammonia for cleaning no additives and you will find many choices.

After your tank has cycled it should start to have algae blooms it is then you can add a CUC, then after a few weeks add one or two fish, can add additional fish of one or two every 3 weeks or so. Don't be in a hurry and take your time.

 

[CStrickland]

1 ppm phosphate is pretty high. I would retest that and make sure the rodi is 0 tds.
If that doesn't come down to below .1 ppm with water changes you might want to keep the rocks in the dark for a while and run gfo until they leach some phos out, it can be easier to "cook" them that way than to deal with algae.

 

[danil]

Hi guys-
Brand new to the community and salt water aquaria as well! I have a 75g saltwater tank with a 30g sump. It is only 1 week old and has no inhabitants other than those that came with the 75 lbs of cured live rock. I'm using only RO/DI water- salinity (1.025), ph (8.1) are good. 3 days ago I added a couple frozen shrimp to start the n-cycle. To this point I've seen no ammonia/nitrite/nitrate but just had a diatom bloom and have 1ppm phosphate. Should I be worried about this or can this be normal? Should it be treated? When should I expect to see a start in the cycle? Lastly, are the shrimp a bad idea- should they be pulled? Thank you so so so so much!
Marc

1ppm phosphate is high. Seems like you are having some die offs. I would bring them down to 0.1-0.2ppm at least. You should be getting some Nitrate reading at the and of the cycle. If you have none - wait longer your cycle isn't done. And fix this phosphate level otherwise you'll have algae problem.

GL

 

[Mr. Maahhc]

Wow- you guys are all so awesome! Thank you so much for your input. I'm already loving the community and can't wait to be in a position to help someone else out (shooting for 2020