Need help

[khengchuan]

all experts,
A 20 gallons with live rocks and (dead sand from beach). Those live
rocks have coraline alga purple and gradually died and turn to green.
My measurement are nitrate 20 mg, KH 9dkh, and Ca 360 mg/l, salinity 1.023 and
temperature 28 celcius . With 2 flurocents tube 18w +18w.
I decided to keep simple marine tank with live rock with coraline alga, snails, shrimps, and a clown.
what should I require to have improve my tank.
can I reduce my nitrates, other than water changes?
what type of supplements do I require to improve my tank environment? (Ca, trace Elements)
Need advice,
Thank you,

 

[flydan]

Hey!
Welcome to the board!
To keep your nitrates low, be careful not to overfeed your clown. I assume the things listed in your post are already in the tank?
Water changes will help bring the nitrates down but they do not solve the problem of why they are high in the first place.
Something else you may wish to concider is adding some calerpa to your tank. Some people like it and some don't, so it's a personal choice. Calerpa use nitrates as a food sorce so it may help bring the levels down. The most important thing still is only to feed your fish what they consume in 2-3 minutes.
You also didn't say how much lr you had or how long your beach sand had been in your tank. Even though you said your sand was "dead", there is a good chance it has a lot of organic matter in it that is decaying and causing your nitrates to rise. You may want to check your ammonia levels as I suspect that your tank may still be cycling.
Any more information that you can provide will help us help you!
Take care,
Dan'l

 

[oceanblue]

I suspect he's cycling as well...give us feedback from FlyDan's post and we'll see.