High Phosphate in new tank, Help

[DANE MFG]

New 20-gal tank, 3 day old, 25lbs uncured Nomali live rock, nothing else added is testing above 2ppm of phosphate. Used RO water that testes out at .1ppm which I thought to be high so I tested my well water it tested the same (using Red Sea test kit). But even if the test kit is wrong it is constantly wrong which means I still have a high phosphate problem in the tank. Is it normal for live rock that's curing to give of Phosphate? If not where could the Phosphate be coming from? And should I just do some water changes or will that hurt the cycling of the tank? Thanks, John

 

[danmhippo]

You are right, I would bet it's the LR. Prepare a deep cooler/bucket. Take out the LRs in your tanks and pick off all dead sponges on it. Then, use a powerhead attach a flexible tube on it, blast the LRs to remove most of the detritus on it. Afterwards, change your water too.

 

[dukecola]

You shouldn't be worrying about any test parameters while curing LR, the whole process of curing is to allow stuff dying on the rock, plants, algae, animals, sponges, etc to fall off and cure. What I recommend is take the rock out of the tank, put in a big container w/salt water and let it sit w/ a power head and heater only. Every day or so use the powerhead to blast off the dead stuff. After 3 weeks of curing, put the rock in your tank with fresh SW. Since you only have 20 gals worth of rock, if it were me, I'd change the water in the curing tank weekly, the expense wouldn't be that great. Depending on the quality of the rock and how it was shipped, treated, how much has died, the fresh water changes help "rinse" the rock, as if you use the same water for the entire process it can get pretty cloudy w/suspended organics. Granted some rock is not that bad, but I would do it for rock that needs extra curing. The bottom line is, don't worry about PO3 now, it's meaningless.

R/Duke