Tank sitting with questions

Yumarattler · Feb 25, 2019

Good evenings everyone, I have been keeping 2 nanos for about a year now with good success. This weekend someone on our local facebook group asked for help for her brothers tank because his skimmer was over flowing and his roommate didn’t know what to do. She informed me that her brother had suffered a major heart attack and was currently in a medically induced coma. She said this tank is his baby and they didn’t want it to crash while he was fighting for his life. I went over and fixed his skimmer issue and changed out some filter pads. I told the family not to worry that I would do the routine maintenance on the tank and take care of anything that comes up.

The tank is a 180 gallon tank with maybe a 30 gallon sump. It has a aqua excel dc skimmer, refugium, and running black box LEDs. I went today and changed some filter socks and tested the water.

Ammonia-0
Nitrite-0
Ph-7.8
Nitrates-80ppm.

He is obviously having algae issues so I thought I would start doing weekly or biweekly water changes. Is 20 gallons a week enough to slowly get things right. Also, his tank is at 1.028 so what would be the best way to slowly bring it back to 1.026

Thanks for any help.

Brad Miller · Feb 25, 2019

Always good to help someone in need...
To bring the salinity down, just top off evaporation with a lower mixed saltwater, maybe 1.015 or there abouts and keep an eye on the DT salinity...will take a bit this way but is the slow way to do it.

Or when doing your water changes, just do a lower salinity for that....2 birds with one stone

Yumarattler · Feb 25, 2019

Topping off with any saltwater would increase salinity not decrease it.

Brad Miller · Feb 25, 2019

Sorry, that was to raise it...wasnt thinking

Mastiffsrule · Feb 25, 2019

That is awesome you are help8ng like that. Shows a lot of character.

Like brad mentioned lower it when doing the water change. I have a 180 also. If I am running a bit high(or low) I mix my new water a point lower or higher than tank. As long as Rodi is used to top off and keep sSG constant it will slowly come down thru the water changes

Yumarattler · Feb 25, 2019

Making sure I wasn’t having a brain fart. Lol

ngoodermuth · Feb 25, 2019

You can use a salinity calculator to determine how many water changes, and at what salinity, you need to achieve what you need. I don't recall the exact one I've used before, but it was something like this:
https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/TargetSalinity.php

And definitely get it on a regular waterchange schedule to start and then go from there. If there's corals, maybe check the alk and calcium to make sure they aren't too far off.

Brad Miller · Feb 25, 2019

You don't look old enough to have brain farts yet, but your day is coming, believe me.

Yumarattler · Feb 25, 2019

Is 20 gallon a week or bi weekly enough to make a difference? I usually do a weekly 5 gallon on my 24 gallon and my 30 gallon. I would like it to look better when he is finally able to come home then when he left it. I sounds like he has a very long road ahead of him and want to setup a regular maintenance schedule that will be beneficial.

Yumarattler · Feb 25, 2019

Hahahaha. I have two kids that drain me so I am plenty old for brain farts. I plan to test the Alk, Ca, and Mg on Friday when I go for my first water change. I get the feeling the guy is on a pretty tight budget and don’t want to implement something like dosing that he can’t sustain long term. In the couple times I have chatted with him on messenger before this he told me he used reef crystals so I ordered a big box today for his tank. Corals wise he is almost completely softies so I would assume they aren’t taking up much Ca and Alk but I will know Friday.

Brad Miller · Feb 25, 2019

Maybe do 20 gallons every week as his standard...roughly 10% for him and gradually it will steady out, then he can keep that up.
With that 10%, make adjustments to the salt mix depending on the DT needs

Mastiffsrule · Feb 25, 2019

Brad Miller said:
You don't look old enough to have brain farts yet, but your day is coming, believe me.

Can I do more than 1 like on the same post?

dylana407 · Feb 26, 2019

1.028 is no big deal. I would make 1.025 water when I do WC. High nitrate and GHA is more troublesome.

ShaunRobinson · Feb 26, 2019

As above 1.028 isn't the end of the world to be fair. The high Nitrates and Phosphates are your main problems here. For the Salinity you can bring this down easily enough. Depending on the tank stocking, I would take some water out, replace with RODI until you get 1.026. It shouldn't take much. Then a 20g weekly water change will help lower the nitrates. Did you test for Po4? also is there any phosphate media running in the tank and do you have a pic of the algae?

Yumarattler · Feb 26, 2019

I do not have any P04 test kits currently but it does look like he has a dual bra reactor for carbon and GFO I would assume. His roommate said it was off and I haven’t messed with it yet. I have never dosed carbon or GFO and need to do more research on it. I will get some pictures of the algae on Friday when I go back.

Thanks for all the input everyone.