I need help

[Grumpyfish]

Hello Every body

I am new here, so I apologized for jumping right in and asking for help.

We have an 180 gallon tank. 8 fish, live rock, a few corals and cleaning crew.

About three months ago we had 12 anemones, one day we noticed one of them was bleaching, and we left it there in hopes we could bring it back (that was probably my first mistake), after that it disappeared, probably die with out us noticing. Well that went in a cycle, all of them started disappearing to the point that we have not one anemone left. My nitrates went off the roof and haven't been able to get them under control. I started using AZ-NO3, it helped a bit but since things (emerald crab and corals) were still dieing I stopped using it. Now my nitrates are still high 160 (yup, don't fall of your chair) and my cleaning crew is still dieing (hermit crabs, turbo snails, Emerald crabs).

Now my questions are, did I create a cycle when not removing the bleaching anemones? is my cleaning crew dieing because of the high nitrates? or lack of food? Regarding the high nitrates, does anybody have experience with using AZ-NO3?

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated

 

[Dsnakes]

How old is the tank, and what are the rest of your parameters? This will help to get to the bottom of it. What kind of lighting do you use? Hopefully we can get an answer for you.

Oh, and welcome to R2R

 

[Grumpyfish]

thank you for the fast response.

We got this tank last July but we bought it from somebody that had it for a few years before that. though we bought the anemones from somebody else as well as some of the coral.
Lighting we have 3 Kessil A350W that we have on from 5pm until 11 pm the rest of the day it gets indirect sunlight.

Here are the other parameters.

NH3 - 0
NO2 - 0
Salinity - 1.023
PH 8.8
Temp- 79F
NO3 160

That is all we tested for today

Thank you again.