New tank 3 month setup cycle

[Tomb85]

Hi all, I purchased redsea 260max E and I've had it up and running for 3 months with prawns in the sump I put more prawns in the sump after 6 weeks to keep nutrients high to get a good cycle done. Tested my tank today and tests results are as follows:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10ppm
Phosphate 7.8ppm
I turned my skimmer Deltec 400 on and added filter socks also removed prawn remains. Tomorrow I will be adding clown pair to system with regal tang. I will wait a week till next lot of fish get added and bring down Phosphate to 0.4 so I can add corals within a month.
Is this all OK or should I change anything?

 

[jda]

Seems like you can add fish. I would just play the next steps as they come - don't plan too much since plans can be harder to change than ideas. Move to the next steps when everything is ready and not so much on a pre-determined timeline.

 

[Cell]

All good. Quarantine your fish before adding.

 

[brandon429]

no that is cycled weeks ago. the only risk is the skipping of all fish disease preps; see any series of help posts in the disease forum before you begin with no preps in place, it's nearly certain within 6 mos you'll be posting there for disease issues. how one cycles has no bearing on disease preps, that's a solid cycle wait time though. all done and ready to reef.

 

[brandon429]

hey look how naturally long my posts are compared to a concise one heh Ive always known that. its fun that way.

 

[Spare time]

That is an insanely high phosphate level. Before you get fish, dose some lanthanum chloride into the tank while using a 5 micron filter sock.

 

[Tomb85]

Yh thats my plan. I've been in the hobby for 5 years but sold everything last year and said I would start new when house renovations were all completed, I sort of plan a rough timeline in my head but go when the tank is ready. Never had luck with sps but this time round that is my goal. I also want to try harder breeds of fish this time round but will do plenty of research beforehand.

 

[Tomb85]

Yh phosphate is unreal never had this sort of ratio with nitrate so low but it will be sorted soon but I'll do it slowly so I can track it to make sure its at the right level so I don't got to low.

 

[brandon429]

its nice to know that there won't be a need to test for ammonia or nitrite ever again for the life of the tank.

being able to close out some measurement params as permanently fixed in place (mass fish death and rot in the tank not from ammonia causes is the only way ammonia can't be controlled in a post cycle reef>if you can account for your fish and flow the cycle cannot become undone ever) helps to reduce testing and mistesting load in the hobby. you can manage the impactful params now

 

[Garf]

Yh phosphate is unreal never had this sort of ratio with nitrate so low but it will be sorted soon but I'll do it slowly so I can track it to make sure its at the right level so I don't got to low.

You do know that you wrote your phosphate is 7.8 ppm? Surely not.

 

[Tomb85]

You do know that you wrote your phosphate is 7.8 ppm? Surely not.

Yh thats right but tomorrow I will get a better phosphate test kit to double check it but tested it twice and same reading twice.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Just me personally, but I would wait 3-4 weeks before adding the next batch of fish.

 

[Spare time]

Yh phosphate is unreal never had this sort of ratio with nitrate so low but it will be sorted soon but I'll do it slowly so I can track it to make sure its at the right level so I don't got to low.

No need to drop it slowly when there are no corals. I'd just do it now before the fish get in as I don't like using lanthanum chloride with fish. You may burn through a lot of GFO at first and will likely need GFO for a while while it leaches out of the rock.

 

[Spare time]

Honestly I think either the nitrate or phosphate number is wrong. Tossing in lots of rotting shrimp is going to raise nitrate more than 10ppm imo.

 

[Tomb85]

I've had the same numbers 4 times in a row. I'm going to remove phosphate tomorrow down to 2ppm to add fish but I'll do majority of it by mass water change

 

[Spare time]

I've had the same numbers 4 times in a row. I'm going to remove phosphate tomorrow down to 2ppm to add fish but I'll do majority of it by mass water change

Water changes do very little for phosphate because it will just equalize back out of the rocks and will be high again. What are you using to lower the phosphate other than a water change?

 

[Tomb85]

Water changes do very little for phosphate because it will just equalize back out of the rocks and will be high again. What are you using to lower the phosphate other than a water change?

If that's the case I'll use gfo or if there's anything better in my LFS then I'll get it

 

[Spare time]

If that's the case I'll use gfo or if there's anything better in my LFS then I'll get it

GFO and Lanthanum Chloride are the best options but Lanthanum chloride is much more cost effective and is easy if you don't have fish yet.