24 JBJ nano Cube - equipment add on help for nutients. (1 Viewer)

[guy9smiley2]

I have a 24g JBJ cube. Always seem to have high phosphates and nitrates. Very minimal feeding. I have a very small lawnmower blenny, 1 clownfish, and 1 six line.
Little background i let this tank run for 5 years or so ( no light ) with just top offs. sometimes tap water. ( with no fish ) just the sand and rock. few years ago i started wanting to get it back together right and get fish back in it etc. i did a hand full 50% water changes for a month then added the clown and the blenny and wrasse later on down the road. they always eat all the food dropped in and have 3 hermits that grab the 1-2 IF any get away. i had cyano, bryopsis, gha, and bubble algae it was a mess.... i got ALL of it under control but the GHA just wont go away. i introduced a uv sterilzier and that helped so much with the other issues but obv it wont help with whats on the rock. ive been doing manual removal but this stuff is growing fast! obviouslly i have a nutrient issue. ( ill get parameters later but they are high everytime i test ) not sure where to start i do 5g monthly. which i was thinking of upping to a 5 gallon bi weekly. It has the led lid so i cannot fit a skimmer in it or anything like that. Any idea of anything i can do or should do?

 

[Varig]

So my guess is that your rock/sand is just totally inundated with phosphate. Even as you remove it from the water column (e.g. 100% water change), the phosphate will leech back out of the rock to reach a steady state, which will still be super high.

So, I suspect your only option here is to do either lots of super big water changes (50-75% per week) or use an aggressive phosphate remover like lanthanum chloride. You will need to bind a LOT more phosphate that you may think.

Obviously be sure to take it somewhat slow. You don’t want to drop it in a week or anything.

You said you were gonna do some testing, I am curious to hear what those results are once you take the tests.

And I think that you should aim for roughly 20% weekly water changes until you get it under control. In addition to the lanthanum.