One thing after another

[Sistawolf]

Sooooo I have a 75 gallon reef and fish tank.. It's been up and running with livestock for 6 months. I have 1 a few zoas, 4 bubble tip anemones, a few hard and soft coral, a premium bonded clown fish, a black and white clown, Cardinal, citrus clown goby, one damsel, watchman goby with shrimp, two med tangs, 6 line wrasse, and a Bassett along with clean up crew.. I just recently purchased a Pygmy angel which passed out of the blue about 4 days later.. And a scallop which didn't make it 24 hours, and a red star fish which lasted about a week.. Noticing my corals looking like poop, and the loss of some fish I looked into my lighting.. I had a old t5 light with a two small moon lights (sorry, it was in a package deal I bought and no numbers to look up to find out what type it was) so I thought I would purchase some new light bulbs.. Seeing as it's almost as much to buy a whole new set up and I had no clue what I had.. My only option at the time was to purchase the fluval pro 2.0... It's been going for two days with nothing changing.. So I took a water sample to a lfs and he said my nitrates are through the roof and told me to do a 20% water change. I am about to do this now... But I have a hob skimmer and he said I should get a in sump skimmer.. My dilemma now is.. With the lights being on for 48 hours.. To help my corals and anemones it has caused a algae bloom. Now what? Im trying to get the coral looking healthier.. But now faced with needing them turned off because of all the algae.. What should I do?

 

[Robink]

Were the lights on for 48 hours straight? First of all do a water change to lower the nitrates. How long do you normally run your lights? And do you know at what intensity your lights are at? There's no need to run lights for that length of time.
If your new lights are led's, you should still acclimate your corals to the light. So I would turn down the intensity and run the lights on a normal light schedule and gradually bring them up. I have Radions and only run them at 45% and my corals do fine.

 

[Robink]

A good skimmer is worth it. You will see a major improvement in your tank with a new skimmer. If it's the money maybe you can find a used one at the lfs or here on the site.
With all those fish in there you do need a good skimmer! Lots of poo!

 

[shadow1013]

Sounds more like water parameters than lighting. Kill the white if you can on the LED. What are the rest of your parameters?

 

[Salty1962]

First off, you need to figure out why your No3 is so high. Do you run and Po4 or No3 reducing media in your tank? You can do water changes to help eliminate the immediate levels but until you figure out what's causing the high levels in won't be permanent. Have you had any livestock die recently? Dead livestock is a sure way to cause your levels to go up. Your fish and corals should be fine to cut the lights off for 3 days but you have to make sure NO light gets to the tank or else it won't work. The change in lighting along with water chemistry being off are items that can cause the algae break out. Check your tank closely for dead livestock, look at using media or something like NO3O4-X, do a couple of WCs and get some test kits to keep up with your water parameters. Hang in there, it will get better JMO

 

[Sistawolf]

Thank you all for replying.. Sorry for my delay.. I think I have a lfs in my home now. I recently moved all my corals to my 39 gallon except for my bubble tips and did a wc. It's time for another water change tonight.. I will post everything I purchased today as soon as I get my rodi going

 

[Sistawolf]

This is half of my pharmacy

 

[wes_slavens]

N03 P04X works pretty good I had really high phosphates .79 and I've been dosing for a few weeks now and my nitrates are between 0-5 and phosphates are down to .04. I also run a gfo reactor

 

[cmcoker]

This is half of my pharmacy

Whoa, hang on before you start dumping stuff in. Start with the basics, do a couple large water changes. See how fast nitrate rises after, cause you had a few things die right? Did you remove the fish or had your cuc already eaten it?

You have 2 pH tests and 3 alkalinity tests in those kits... Have you opened them all cause I would be returning some.

I wouldnt add fuel to a tank with nitrate issues either.

What's you nitrate sitting at right now?
What are you feeding, how much, how often?