New to Saltwater, am quite clueless :)

[clairenich]

Hello, I am very new (3 months) to Saltwater, I've always had freshwater but I was given a saltwater set up that someone couldn't be bothered with and it had been overstocked and left to ruin. The tank was a 50 litres (sorry I don't do gallons ), so quite small and had 3 Chromis, a tiny clown, a cleaner wrasse, 2 yellow tailed damsels, a pyjama cardinal, a ghost cardinal (right name?), a boxer shrimp and a choc chip star. they also had two corals, who I think i have managed to identify as a Toadstool and some kind of branching coral (Will put pics for ID). So as you can see, way, way overstocked ( I think anyway) for a small tank.
I went out and bought a 500 ltr Tank with sump and acclimatized them all over into it, there was no live rock in the tank, so I have bought some (slowly...jeez its expensive ). Right now its confusing central, the corals have perked up wonderfully and I started to have a cyano outbreak, which seems to have now settled. I am having difficulty stabalizing the water.
Parameters are:
Calcium 460
Nitrates are at 80! Have just done a 20% water change and added some NitrateMinus.
KH 7dkh
Phosphates 0.25
Mag was over the chart but i estimate about 1600
Salinity is at 1.026
Temp 28.

I am trying to learn quickly but its all soooo confusing :S i am yet to understand the relationship between the balances, I will keep researching.

What I need to know really is how to get those Nitrates down quickly, the Magnesium levels and anything else I need to change.
Is this all what a new tank will do anyway and will then settle down?
Everything seems nice and happy in the tank, I was also given 3 snakelock anemones and they have split into 6, I don't know if this is healthy or a survival thing, I have read both but everyone does seem much happier now
Any help will be hugely appreciated
Claire

 

[clairenich]

The pics of the new tank.

 

[Mr tap water]

Hi there
The quickest and most simplest way to reduce No3. is some big water changes in the beginning with RO water and keep doing every day until you reach the level you require and then carry on doing regular water changes of A minimum of 10% on a regular basis to keep No3 at bay And if it starts to rise again just increased the percentage a bit more .as for your calcium and magnesium The levels are perfectly fine as they are.


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[54seaweed]

50% water change than another the next day should get the nitrates down .
with nitrates at 80ppm I would almost bet your phosphates are higher than .25ppm.
and your getting a false reading . but the bigger water changes will fix that as well .
you also never mentioned your ammonia level .

nice tank but I would add more rock as you can afford it it just be sure it's cured before you add it . or add 1 or 2 pieces of dry base rock every week , giving it time to start to accumulate bb as it is cheaper till you reach your goal . the base rock will color up over time as it becomes live.

the rock should be 1 to 1/2 lbs per gallon your tank is around 125g us .
also cut back on feeding to like every other day and don't over feed .

reading back I must ask this as you never mentioned if the tank was ever cycled
just want to be sure were on the same page .

we don't want to see you running into problems down the line , knowing the things you never told us could help us , so we are not assuming things we don't know , being sure you get the most accurate answers to help you .