400g help please

[Thisseemsfishy]

Hey all. I'm helping a friend who's tank is in desperate need of help. He has a massive GHA problem that is the result of no WC's and poor maintenance. Here's what I know....He has a 450g MT, sump, fuge. There's a total of 400g of water. It's mainly a softie/LPS tank. I know out of the gate he needs to change his bulbs, or lighting completely and start a WC schedule. My main question is, he has 2 return pumps that he wants to replace. What return pumps and phosphate reactor should I go with? Any other advice for a tank this large is welcomed.

Thanks

 

[BigOldReef]

Start with water changes, assumming you are making your new water with RO water.
If you can do a 25 percent a week that would be a great starting point.

Before the first water change I would go through and manually pull as much as possible and then after the manual removal do a 50 percent water change.

I would then add at least a liter of carbon.

Then I would start the weekly water changes, and each week change filter socks and carbon. After 4 weeks the tank should be turning around. If not enough of a change then consider adding the phosphate reactor.

You didn;t mention what the bulbs are. If they are very outdated halides, then they could easily have shilfted color balance and be adding the nuisance algae growth. So changing those out is a must.

The bulbs should be changed when you do the first initial manual cleaning and 50 percent water change.

 

[Thisseemsfishy]

Thank you for the help. The halide bulbs are very old so that is probably contributing to all of it. I just ordered him some new RO filters as those were outdated too.

I'm pretty excited about this. I have a 55 so this is a whole new venture.

 

[Thisseemsfishy]

Return pump suggestions please?!?!?!?!

 

[BigOldReef]

Return pumps depend on what size plumbing you have, both in and out of the tank. What size over flows do you have, what size plumbing from the over flow.

And the distance the water is travelling from the pump back to the tank.

Do you need 600gph, 1000, 1500, 3000gph.

Need more details to give you advice on this.