Starting over with my tank!

Eek... Well lets see....

Nitrates are high, I would try and get them down to 0-5ppm, I've recently built a hang on the back refugium for my tank to hold chaeto algae to help with excess nutrients too.

Nitrite is high... this is toxic to fish and corals, and should read 0... If you're still getting a nitrite reading it means your tank cycle hasn't finished yet..

Alkalinity I'm not sure about... I know on my kit I'm shooting for 8-12 dkh... but don't have the conversion to ppm... I believe it's low though

PH is way low, this is not a freshwater tank... PH should be at least 8.0... I prefer to keep mine around 8.2

On the bright side of things though your temperature is great!

How long has your tank been set up? is there anything in it beside live rock and sand?

As stated above the nitrite and nitrate is really high, However like stated above if there is nothing in your tank and you are in the middle of the nitrate cycle then it's ok for now.

What is the salinity level in the tank?

Regarding the PH and Alk they are related It kind of works like this your magnesium level should be around 1400 when it goes below that level the tank will also start to drop in the alkalinity (or KH level) as this drops then the calcium level will drop too. when these levels are very low (below acceptable levels in a reef aquarium) then you will see a drop in ph.

with all that being said I would get some good salt, mix it let it sit make sure that all of the levels are good before adding it to the tank. mix enough water to change about 50% AS LONG AS THERE ARE NO FISH OR CORALS IN THE TANK. If there are then you are either going to have to bag the fish and corals change the water and then re-acclimate them or do a series of smaller water changes so you don't shock them and kill them.

by doing this you are going to prolong the cycle a little but it is better then adding a bunch of chemicals to the tank to bring up the other parameters. (if you are still cycling the tank there should not be any animals in the tank)

That Nitrate and Nitrite are problems. You'rs is a 29 gal right? (my favorite tank size by the way). If it were my tank I'd do daily 5 gal changes till the nitrate was down to at least 10ppm. And most tropical fish and corals seem to do better with a little higher temp, 78 to 80 degrees, but 76 is nothing to panic about.

Everything phil said I agree with, that's for sure.

We're in the same boat right now as far as setup goes. I swapped mine over to a reef-tank about 3 weeks before yours if I remember post dates correctly, and we both need to slow down and take our time.

I can tell you one thing that has greatly greatly improved my aquarium so far since the change was the addition of the refugium. I have 3 cats, so was unable to to do an under the tank setup like I would have preferred, so instead I built one that hangs on the back of the aquarium. With a 6 gallon capacity back there, I added some chaetomorph, a 5" sand bed, and broke some of the live rock up in my main tank to make it more aesthetically pleasing and threw some of the rubble into the fuge to help grow some copepods.

I've had my losses... I got antsy the second I bought the lights and went out and spent about $150 on frags with a local reefer... and I lost 4 of the 7... costly mistake that is for sure (2 acros... a really bright orange mushroom, and an acan which I think I kinda did in myself by trying to blow off some algae and it's tissue kinda came with it)

I've stepped back and decided to go with some of the easier softies and lps for the time being, and they all seem to be doing great. My pulsing xenia is always open and pulsing happily.. My frogspawn already looks to be starting a new branch.. my scroll coral opens up nicely, and a green nepthya which is growing quite tall already. I'm really limiting myself to only adding 1 new coral a month... and holding off if I'm noticing anything out of the ordinary in the tank. Right now I have some zoa's not opening up and a few have some brown slime coating on them so I'm currently starting to dose vitamin c into the tank as well.

Now that my fuge is up and running I'll be putting up another blog post today on it, so It may give you some ideas... fabricating it was really easy.. and the week or so it's been running I've already noticed less algae growth in the main aquarium and my phosphates have dropped

Thank y'all for all the advice. I appreciate it very much! Dread, I would really like to see the fuge and maybe how to build it into I can do a under tank one.

Thanks,

HAT