Newbie questions

[Harleylay]

I recently purchased a 90 gallon Saltwater tank off craigslist It came with 200 pounds of live rock 4 fish I have some questions First it came with a protein skimmer But the pump is Burnt out Do I need to run a skimmer It is a drilled tank with a sump It has one powerhead And a in tank cascade 300 filter Should I be running more powerheads Also I took water to Jack's And had it tested Everything was good except nitrates were a little high Can this be fixed by water change Also any other information would help greatly The fish I have our Two Nemos One dory 2 starfish and 1 kaudern cardinal thanks

 

[little_fish]

Hello and Welcome!

A protein skimmer will be much more useful in a saltwater tank than the cascade filter. I personally would just toss it. Canister filters can contribute to nitrates problems rather than improve the water quality. So i would suggest fixing or getting a new protein skimmer.

You are going to need a few more powerheads, you want the tank's volume to be turned over at least 30x per hour.

Doing water changes will help with the nitrates. Did you change out the sand when you moved the tank? If not, it may take some time and lots of water changes before the nitrates get under control.

Also, "nemo fish" are called clown fish and "dori fish" are called hippo tangs. The clowns will do just great in the tank you have, but the hippo tang will need a much larger tank, the minimum recommended size is 180 gallons.

Finally, please use punctuation in your posts. It is extremely annoying to have to sort through a blob of text.

 

[poksal]

Wow. .that is a great start...
I'd put some of the LR rubble in the sump. Forget any kind of filter the LR is the filter. I run a GFO and a carbon reactor on a circuit out of my sump but have them running at a trickle. I think they are as much for piece of mind as a necessity. If my PO4 (phosphates) gets high I can kick up the water volume in that circuit... and do once in a while briefly to keep the GFO media from bricking.

IF you have room, I'd watch garage sales or a small acrylic tank that will fit in the stand with the sump and install a refugium... it is a personal pref but it adds to the water volume, and is a good place to keep pods and add diversity to the life forms. The acrylic is easy to drill to install the overflow back into the sump.

If you do not have one I would put a RODI system on the list of nice things to have for reef keeping.

Then stay tuned....