Phosphate and Ammonia problems...

:-/ Hey people. Someone told me that my algae problem was probably because of high nitrates and phosphates. and i want to get rid of some excess ammonia, too. Does anyone know of a product that can do this? i've heard of using activated carbon, will this work? i have an oceanic biocube, where would i put it? please help, ordering online!

 

First, we need to know what your parameters are. How long has the tank been up for. From the look of your livestock list, it looks like you are way overstocked. How much lr do you have? Running activated carbon is one of the best things you can do to help the water quality in your tank. If you want to rid of phosphate, run ferric oxide.

 

overstocked?

umm... my parameters are:

Nitrate - 0
Nitrite - 0
Ammonia - .5
Salinity - 1.026
Ph - 8.2
Alk - 13 DkH

I've cycled it and have had it up and running for 4 or 5 weeks. and is 4 fish really over stocked for an 8 gallon tank?? the goby is like the size of 1.5 thumbnails...

 

definitely overstocked.

 

seriously?

i thought the rule of thumb was 1 inch to every gallon...

 

Rule of thumb is one inch every 3 gallons.
The ammonia would is the biggest problem. Given time, that will kill everything in the tank. Honestly, 8 gallons would be good for one fish. You'd be really pushing it with two

 

all new

this is like all new to me... if i'm overcrowding mine, then what the people who own the 8gal bc doing with theirs on Youtube??

 

Could you post a link to the video in question? Doing a quick search on youtube, the first 5 8 gallon biocube reefs all had only 1 fish.

 

you win

oh... ok... i guess you win... so... do you wanna help me out? what should i do now? i just got those fish today...

 

Another important thing to consider is that you need to give time between adding new fish.
To have 4 fish by week 5 is way to fast. You want to wait at least 2 weeks between fish to allow the the tank to catch up to the bioload. I wait a month in between mine