Nice to hear from you!
I am fairly new to salt, but have had fresh water for years. Since retiring, needed a more intense hobby, so gave fresh water to grandson and set up salt. Before doings, I went to Books Million and book book and studied and did a lot of google searches. The key point was ammonia is very toxic and then nitrites. Nitrates re not so bad and can supply food for your algae growth. This why I mentioned about the use of the bio product. Even it talks about “new tank” you can add a portion of the bottle and within no time the bacteria will convert to nitrite and then on to nitrates and then denitrification of the nitrates. When I first started my tank months ago, I never had ammonia but had nitrites and did water changes to no avail. I found Seachem Bio and added about 1/3 of bottle and since then I have not had any positive tests of any of the three. As to changing water, I do not see it is needed if the system is balanced. I have read where some aquarists never change water, those with very large systems, ie 300 ga. To change, you are needing to exchange 50 to 60 ga. If you ever watch Tanked on TV where they install very large aquariums, they are sealed and water I not changed. I have eaten at a restaurant in Atlanta where they have about 1000 gal round tank in middle, floor to ceiling and there is no way they change out any water.
As to shows, I have not attended any, we have a local ***** that keeps a good variety of fish and then purchase from Saltwater.com and ***********(owed by *****).
With setup, I have a Marineland 350 hang on with bio-wheels and a big canister 407 by Fluval that turns over the complete tank just in no time. It is good to have good “ clean-up crew, like I have nearly 30 of the turbo snails and the same amount of blue and red leg crabs. In addition, I have 2 sand sifting starfish that feed on uneaten food, fish “poop”, and diatoms” brown stuff on live rocks and sand.
Hope I have given you some pointers so you do not have more fish to die and particularly the reef since they are so expensive.(I decided not to go with invertebrates(reefs).
