Nitrate and Phosphate spike!!

I have a recently cycled 125 and 30 gallon sump with cheato and cualerpa in the fuge. At first I had coraline growing in the sump. Now it seems to have stopped. I now have cyno taking over my sand bed. This all started about a week ago. Nitrates are 20 ppm and they were holding steady at 0-5ppm. Phosphates are .25 and I was holding steady at 0-.05. I havent changed anything except I added some turbo snails to start cleaning up the cyno. I dont know why this has started please help! What should I do? I hate cyno!!! By the way I have not added any fish yet. Just a few small corals.

 

do u use ro/di water? maybe ur not done with the cycle? what are ur parameters?

 

all tanks go thought stages like this. it will last a month or two but we can help shorten it. also you shouldent be adding any corals untill 6 months in. are your light stong enough

 

I hope my lights are strong enough. I have twin 36 inch pc 192 watt lights. I have only added about five mushrooms. I know they are very hardy is why I added them. Yes I am using rodi and my params are ph 8.0, amon 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 20 ppm, and phos .25. I thought I had this system tuned up just right now I am going to hold off on adding fish and corals until I have it just right I think.

 

Also....I dont know if this makes any diff or not but my skimmer seems to be picking up a LOT nasty stuff. Very dark almost black gunk. I empty it daily! There arent even any fish in the tank yet so I dont understand. My skimmer is rated for over 300 gallon tanks. I had to slow the flow down just to get it to work right in my sump.

 

ya hows the TDS coming out or your RODI. for shrooms the PC's are ok but you wont be able to keep many other things

 

if u use ro/di u shouldnt get any phosphate unless u originally filled the tank up with tap water

 

TDS has been a big fat 0. I am using the typhoon 5 stage reefkeeper from airwaterandice. I know I need more powerful lights for other corals. I havent gotten that far yet. Was thinking of adding a set of t-5s to the pcs. Maybe this will be enough for some of the soft corals?

 

Originally filled the tank with tap :

 

theirs your problem. you should get it out of your system within a month or two