Advice? high phosphate and ammo

I am dealing with that in my tank.
Questions: How long has it been setup?
Rocks - were they live? all of them?
Fish? How many what size tank do you have?
Do you have a bare bottom or sand (how much?)
What do you have for a filtration system?

 

Way too soon to worry about Phosphates just let it cycle. Patience. I am assuming your replacement water (RO/DI) does not have high Phosphates. That would be bad.

 

If you adequately cleaned the dry rock the phosphates should subside. Higher levels of ammonia are good early on as that is what fuels the cycle to start. After a couple weeks it should go down and begin showing higher levels of nitrites. Then those levels should go down and nitrates will rise. Just let it be for 4-6 weeks and stuff should level off. If the nitrates or phosphates remain high you may need to do more water changes than after a usual cycle. Eventually they should go down unless your rock is really bad leeching. Worst case is you end up having to pull out the rock and clean it. There are a couple methods to resolve it, my preferred is an acid bath. In any event, you've got it all in there so may as well wait and see if it levels out before messing with anything.

 

What is your phosphates reading?

 

Is that in parts per million or parts per billion? If its billion then you're completely fine for cycle stage. If it is PPM then you need to do a larger water change. If several water changes over a week don't make it decline significantly you may need to start over after treating the live rock and cure/treat it separately before trying to cycle again.

 

What test kits are you using?

 

Pick up a salifert or red sea phosphate test, or a hanna checker. When I started up I had an API kit still left over from my freshwater tank and it always showed phosphate way high.