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HMB not familiar with all the new tech nor corals trying to get my 180G tank back up

I just joined and just joined as a supporting member after seeing how active the boards are and your great marketplace threads!

I have a 180 gallon 7 feet long, 30" deep, 20" wide True Vue acrylic tank with canopy. It has about 70% of the height with live rock and live sand. I had neglected my water changes, etc. and had a fish or something die and the tank went South so all coral was dead. I kept it running for a year or more baron and over the last month or two I did a number of major water changes, upgraded my lights to three NICREW 150W LED lights mounted about 1.25" over the top of the tank. I used to have two 4 foot power compacts lights. I have my old main recirculating pump that goes to a perforated long PVC bar hidden in the live rock and I just added two 4K Gyre Icecap pumps on the ends of the tank. I have a 100 gallon pond sump with about half filled with an old protein skimmer and and old reactor. I have been out of reefs for a while when LED were not around. I just replaced the carbon in the reactor to these small pellets San Mateo Ultimate Aquarium told me would reduce the phosphate.

The tank only has 5 tiny frags, a tiny green star polyp, sun king psammocora, war coral favites, lime finger leather, green polyp toadstool leather. Thus is is more of a long tank with baron live rock. I am hopeful that you folks can give me guidance as to how to get the tank back up. I want to keep simple corals that are not too much work to maintain and really not sure what to put in the tank. The new lights seem very powerful and right now I have them turned way down to around 40% blue and 20% white as the coral frags I have I am told do not want much light? Totally unsure and uneducated about what to put in the tank; I know we want maybe a couple of clowns and any other fish will be small colorful fish?

I saw your pay it forward and market place discussion areas which is fantastic! Do you think someone would be interested in my two Power Compact lights and trade for some corals? I have no use for it... Your group sounds cool as I did not realize there were that many reefers in the Bay Area...
 
I do not think my tank looks good right now, here are some pics of how it is right now...
 

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Welcome. I said give the hardware for free and that will build your reputation. Afterward people will love you more. Of course you don't have to listen to me.

Half moon bay?
 
Welcome - that is a big tank and should be fine for more fish. Have you tested the water? How long have the corals been in the tank. Hopefully when things are better in world, we will have our frag swaps back. Or checkout the DBTC forum for offerings.

One recommendation I have to maybe move your pumps so they don't push water at each. Make one lower or at a different angle should help flow.
 
Welcome - that is a big tank and should be fine for more fish. Have you tested the water? How long have the corals been in the tank. Hopefully when things are better in world, we will have our frag swaps back. Or checkout the DBTC forum for offerings.

One recommendation I have to maybe move your pumps so they don't push water at each. Make one lower or at a different angle should help flow.
Right now all of the water levels are good other than the phosphate being a little high but I am hoping it will continue to go down with the changes to the reactor and I am doing about 15 gallons at least every other week. The corals have been there for a couple of weeks and all are doing very well now. Everyone here has been great! This is a great forum and community.

I tried putting one gyre pump lower but then the sand was being disrupted too much, they are both set to a sign wave up to 75% of flow during the day and 50% at night. When I had them both off, testing the feeding setting I realized my old PVC with perforated holes that run almost the entire length of the tank about 10" -12" above the sand provide decent flow as the green star polyp still swayed around with the gyres off. One the right side the main pump that feeds the PVC with perforated holes also feeds a 1/2" drop about 2' from the right end of the tank shooting the waterflow towards the left. It seems like I see flow all over the tank but I really am not sure if it is ideal or not?

taking baby steps and people here have been great helping me with little frags, etc. to slowly get some life into the baron landscape of rocks once again and building up my old confidence slowly about saltwater tanks ....
 

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I ordered a clean up crew of snails arriving this next week. only one of my rocks has this mossy algae, is this bad? should I try to pull it off or take it out and use a wire brush? or will the clean up snails eat this stuff up?
 

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Everyone here has been wonderful! I have been fortunate to get some frags, fish, and corals from Bay Area Reefers. I am going to go thru all of my aquarium gear to see what I can Pay Forward as I am so glad I found this site. Today I recommended someone from a Facebook coral site whom was local to the Bay Area and told him about the site and he said he would join as a supporting member.

So far the tank is looking good slowly. Still taking baby steps to prevent mistakes.
 
Welcome.
One thing to think about is the clean up crew. If there isn't much algea and there aren't many fish, you might not have enought stuff for your clean up crew to clean. So they could end up starving and dying prematurely.
The algea in your pic should be fine and your CUC should easily take care of it.
 
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