Deal is no Deal

Just bought set up from friend for 100 bucks, dont even know where to begin, the tank has been neglected for about a year. Fish seem ok,some softies doing ok the ones that were not overrun by green hair algae, have done 2 50% water changes and plan on doing 1 every week till nitrates come down ,bought,calcium and hard water combo,carbon and phosphguard and nitrate removal media and put in sump.came with marineland reef led ,lol i know i know,and 2 54 w ho.sand had never been changed and lots of tube worm everywhere. 40 lbs of rock some covered with algae but starting to see some purple on the clean parts. Want to get this tank up and give its survivors the love they deserve. Where do i start?? Thanks for being here guys

 

Slow down there chief!!!LOLNothing good happens quickly in a SW aquarium. You want to go about this slowly for the fish's/coral's sake.Doing weekly 30-40 percent WC's sounds like a good start until the levels are where you want.Manual removal of as much algae is recommended but be carefull you don't disturb too much at once.Go Slow!!!;D
Welcome to 3reef!Good luck

 

Thanks,its an amazing endeavor to provide a healthy happy environment to these beautiful creatures

 

How has your progress been on this tank?

 

Got the itch again

Well, it has been a really great refresher on being a keeper of an aquarium thats for sure,bought a phosphate reactor,and also bought ati bulbs for t5 HO. Have been doing 25 % water changes and manually trying to remove hair algae. Nitrate is at .5 and phosphate is almost non existent. Will take some pics and post them, the corals seem to be enjoying the cleaner water and fish are doing well.The hermits are cleaning the live rocks with fervor and they are starting to show new coraline growth. My focus is on getting sump up to par and will be cleaning it out tomorrow, I think its in backwards but will take pics and post.lol i have spent hours just sitting in front of tank with amazement on how resilient this tank has been.

 

Welcome!

Sounds good, I agree with Vinny, et. al.

I sent you some Karma- both telepathically, and on the forum!

Keep up the good work

 

yes, congrats on your accomplishments! We all know truly how much work goes into what you're doing. I copied Todd and gave you some karma. With all that karma, you're obligated to post pics now j/k of course but not really.

Also, Todd, could you send me some telepathic karma that I can keep my sps alive??!!

 

So far

Thanks for the Karma guys

 

Why yes, by the power vested in me, I hereby send you good sps keeping Karma!

That tank looks pretty good! 'cept for some GHA, certainly no where near a lost cause.

 

wow! I think it looks fantastic given what you started with. You have some really nice softies in there. You do need to do something to bring down your phosphates which is driving the hair algae but in the meantime, you could try using some peroxide on individual rocks over time. If you haven't read about that method, it works great! You pull out the rock, put regular 3% peroxide on the algae (I used a Qtip), let it sit for about 5 minutes, rinse off with saltwater really well and then return to your tank. The hair algae will slowly fade away....it's amazing!