My New 75 Gal (with a 25 gal sump) Life

[dskibs]

Herro errebody,

About two years ago I started patroling this website like nobodies business, almost lost my girlfriend at the time over it, but loved every second. Always dreamed of getting my own tank together and all the words of advice and great community truly helped inspire me to get into Salt Water tanks. Since that time, I have had zero success in that. Applying to college, sports, music, all of it kept getting in my way and with college close, my parents didn't want the burden of a large tank that they would have to take care of.
Enough backstory, I just became the caretaker of my college's only Saltwater Tank on campus. In a word, I am excited. However, I am also very new (to the tune of one full day) to keeping a saltwater aquarium, any advice is welcome. What I know is: This tank has been established for around two years. It has a sump with all the fixings, is a reef tank, but is in serious need of some flavoring up, and a good old fashion face lift.

I have pictures and all that, but they were taken off my iPhone and this thing won't let me upload them, so if you need to see some to help me let me know. There is algae all over the corals and live rock, there are soft and hard corals throughout and a good CUC seems nonexistent. Also, there are a solitary 4 fish in there: 1 One Spot Foxface, a larger dark red clown, a blue chromis, and another fish which cannot place, black and white verticle stripes is his persuasion though.

So far my loose plans are siphoning the algae off of the rocks with water changes, maybe ordering a CUC through Tampa Bay Saltwater, and adding more fish. Suggestions for fish would be welcome, as well as any tips on really anything aque-scaping wise, or any general sage advice. So far I am planning on adding water every other day, adding 40mL of calcium 2-3 times a week, and water changes bi-weekly.

Sorry for the long winded post, but I am pretty excited!

Thank you for anything,

David

[frozenreefer]

i think you need to get a photobucket account and upload via that? not sure and im sure one of the old salters will let you know.
1. do you have a test kit? a good test kit will be your one best friend. without the numbers you will never know what way to go!

2. a qt is a good idea to help keep disease and pests out of the tank

3. it would help if you posted more info on the setup. lights? skimmer? pumps? water flow? temp? everything!

as far as the algae goes im sure the tank has been mistreated by someone. you have(more than likley) lots of nutrients in the water and is causing the bloom. water changes are a must right now and maybe cut the lights off for a few extra hours a day. but with a test kit you can find out where the levels are. i would almost recomend, depending on time and whatnot to rip apart the tank and start over...who knows whats lurking in the tank now. also clean everythind like the skimmer sump...