Saltwater revamp

So here's what's been happening in my tank lately. The 40 breeder reef is now 5 months old and I am starting to see some of the effects of "mistakes" from the set up of the tank. Not really mad at myself, it's my first salty tank and there are bound to be missteps and a bit of wasted money. I've been using tap water for the last 5 months, I figured no big deal. That was problem number 1. Ive had all sorts of algae blooms and my phosphate is a little over 0.25ppm. My neon green birdsnest, which I loved, started to die from the bottom up. I think this was a result of the phosphates and poor lighting, only 2 39w hoT5s. I was able to frag the birdsnest out before the necrosis got too bad. I got 4 large frags off of it. The smallest one died from tissue death but I was able to sell off the other 3. The main colony started to get hair algae on the skeleton and bubble algae on the base, so I trashed it.

Now, I'm trying to fix everything. I bought a 150w hqi/power compact light from Coralife and I'm in the process of switching to RO/DI water. So far I've changed out 10 gallon with it and my phosphates have already dropped a bit. I picked up (maybe prematurely) two acroporas; one is a purple plasma and the other is idk. It's orange. I'm gonna call it a creamsicle acro is ever frag it out and sell it. So far I've seen polyp extension on both.

Next step, is to remove the turbo snails from the tank, they are bulldozers of the snail world, and replace them with astrea or cerith. After that I'm going to think about changing the aquascaping even though I am very proud of how it looks it's just not conducive to having lots of corals in the tank. Also I want to get my softies off to the sides and the light intensive corals into the middle.

Thanks for reading.
Scott

Pic 1: old lights
Pic 2: new lights (too yellow, I have a 14k bulb on order)
Pic 3: "Creamsicle" acro
Pic 4: Purple Plasma acro

 

always learning aren't we?

 

Keep us informed of your progress, If you can do a 50 % water change with R/O water only, and do another 50 in two weeks or less you will notice a big change in the tank.

 

I agree with stang good idea

 

I bought 4 5-gallon buckets to do a 50% water change but I don't have enough heaters and pumps to mix that much saltwater at once. Any suggestions?

 

Do you have a rubber maid commercial trash can the gray type? This is what I use to mix mine, a 1700 rio submersible pump I put the lid on and let it mix for 12 plus hours then when it is time the water is warm enough from just the pump running I don't use heaters. I also keep the water inside a room for a few days before I use the water as long as the ambient temperature is 68 or higher then I mix my water.

 

I don't have a large tub and I don't want to invest the money on a pump that I will likely use only twice. I do a 10% change twice a month and a 5-gallon bucket is large enough to do a 10% change on a 40 gallon tank.

 

You may want to get a trash can because you could use it for both your tanks and when needed is very helpful when problems arise! Just a suggestion as you asked.

 

You may want to get a trash can because you could use it for both your tanks and when needed is very helpful when problems arise! Just a suggestion as you asked.

Thank you Stang!