HELP university aquarium

[biosail]

HELP! I don't know what to do with a neglected 45 tall university reef aquarium. Its water level dropped significantly in the last month and it looked as though no one was maintaining it, pretty much everything in it is dead save a handful of tough creatures.

I don't know much about large tanks.

1. Should I attach the filter even though there is a crap ton of old live (possibly dead) rock

2. Will the fillter help with the purple skum that collects on top.

3. How long should the metal halide be on, 12 hours on and off?

4. There is some sort of red not slimy stuff that is growing in it and lots of nasty skum on the glass which I used to clean every other day.

5. I need some tough inverts to add to the tank, currently I have a 5 unhappy mushrooms, a tiny little orange sponge, lots of little tiny feather duster looking things with white tubes, and some marble sized pieces of what used to be a beautiful soft coral shaped like a crown. Tiny mini starfish, and three quarter sized blue hermit crabs.

I was thinking about getting one of those big anemones, some colorful zoanthids and maybe a hammer or frog spawn coral, and some green star polyp. Maybe two clown fish?

Please keep in mind I don't know much about all this, and neither will the person that takes over for me in 2 years when I graduate. I am doing this for free. I am very good about water changes and topping off the tank. I have a $300 dollar budget (salt is already paid for).

Any info will help!

Please Help!!!

 

[stlrams88]

I would just take everything out and clean it, put the shrooms and stuff in a smaller tank or something to recover. Then run a skimmer on it for a while after a pretty substantial water change. Wait a while and keep testing your water before you put anything else back in it. 12 hours on and off on an MH is a little bit much from my experience, id shave that down a little bit.

Edit: if you are thinking about a ritteri or carpet anemone you need to wait until your tank is pretty well established they are relativley difficult to care for.

 

[unbreakable]

the most improtant thing is to get all the parameters back in check before you ad anything else. check the salinity, check the ammonia, nitrtite. maybe make up some saltwater for the tank for a water change.

if it has a sump try to see if you can add some sort of filtration down there