White trash?

lol I fixed it ;D

 

Hi Magnus

your tank is much further developed than I imagined it would be after your 1st post
this fact changes some of the advice I posted previously from your 1st post I had wrongly assumed it was a new set up and still cycling , in which case any change you made would be fine

by the way the green flowers are Green Star Polyps - GSP for short and the purple shrooms - you have ID them perfectly

with a set up and stocked tank , disturbing the sand bed or crushed coral ( my eyes are not great) can lead to new problems , a lot of nastys can be released when stirring up and you end up with ammonia and nitrite - or mini cycles as many people refer to them

also as this is the main component of your biological fiter now, removing it is also not a good idea

if it where me, I would wait until I had my sump/ fuge combo ready and then follow the procedure for moving a tank

I would still add more base rock now, as this would then be colonised by bacteria, making the removal of the UG filter possible at a later stage (when the sump/ fuge combo is ready)


Steve

 

lemon peel angel might out grow your 55 so dont get attached to it

 

First, I'm apologizing before hand, since this will be a very long post. I immensely appreciate the patience everyone has had with me.

I'll get the salts tomorrow. Should I completely discontinue the use of the Kent Marine Mg supplement?

Rusty, you're right on, buddy. I just googled images of Anthelia coral and it's a spot on match. Thank you very much.

Steve, thank you again. The base of the tank consists of the following: about 1" of coarse gravel, on top 1" of small (jellybean size) gravel and finally on top of that, 1/2" of crushed shell.

I'm thinking of buying a 20 gal long tank and the necessary things to make it into a sump myself. My plan was to put a filter at the end of my gravel vaccum and filter the water from the main into the 20 gal tank (future sump) then put all my rock and fish in there while I remove the gravel and lay down the sand bed. The remaining 30 gallons of water would go into buckets until I'm done laying the sand in the main tank.
That brings me to question Number 1: Could I use the powerheads and the live rock by themselves while I set up my sump? If so, how long could I have that running that way? Silicone would take 24 hrs to cure if I understood correctly.
Then have the extra necessary gallons of water pre-mixed, so I can add to the main once the sump is ready to go.
Can that work, or do I need to put more thought on this? I will go tomorrow to the store (if open) and get tons of base rock as suggested. Let it get full of good bacteria while I save some money for the sump, skimmer, return pump, siphon box, overflow box, etc, etc, etc, etc

Drew, how big can they get? I was unaware they turn into big guys! The problem is she loves him and she's definitely attached to him already

I hate to be lazy, but I googled SG and all it came up was Singapore stuff! Would you mind educating me on that too?

How long can it take for base rock to turn into live rock?

I was unaware of this. It says in the bottle it's a safe way to raise your Mg... I guess they don't say it all. I'll buy the salts tomorrow.

I should have been more specific to begging with and let you know the tank already has some livestock. So I need to have an alternative filter ready before I mess with this one. Or at least I think this would be the case.

Will do. I have about 29 pounds so I need to buy tons more. How does good dry base rock look like? I think I've seen it on shelves but it's china white... looks bleached. Is that white base rock bad quality?

No, light has only 1 plug with a test and reset switch. All light on or all off. No other options. That shocked me on an almost $300 light set after I found out what they need to do.
I may have to buy LR instead of base rock, depending on how long it takes for it to turn live. I seem to need a lot more filtration power.

And to everyone, you have no idea how grateful I am for all your help and good advice. I'm not sure how the karma thing works here yet, but all of you should get at least +10k karma for all the help. And again, I'm sorry for such long posts. Newbie needs some answer from the pro's. I guess I won't go to the LFS anymore to see what do I need for this or that, since I've noticed they just want to sell me stuff and rip me off my money.

- Magnus.

 

By the way, what would your guess be on the purple looking coral to the left of the GSP? It seems to be slowly growing over the GSP, and I can see it has already grown over some of it.

Is it an invasive species? Should I chisel some of it off?

- Magnus.

 

looks like a type of mushroom

 

if anything though i would watch out for the gsp, that stuff grows like crazy

 

Will do!
That's good news My brother in law is dying to get some frags of this one! He'll be happy to hear that. I guess I can get him a little of that now since it's already a lot bigger than the other ones in the tank.

- Magnus.

 

long posts give us something to think about, dont apologise

Steve

 

Steves advise is spot on as usual but I have one other idea for everyone to advise on.Would it be possible for Magnus to leave the undergravel with no powerheads attached and use it as a plenum? On the water chemistry issue,it would seem to me that a good quality salt mix at proper sg should be all he needs right now.I also am using the Brightwell two part he is using as I have some LPS and a clam and the instrutions are to wait 60 seconds after adding one before adding the other so they don't mix in concentrated form as this can cause precipitation.This is also a possibility of what's happening .