Adiing Live rock to allready established tank

[elvictre]

Hi I’m new here, and new with salt water fish altogether. I purchased an oceanic systems 75 gal aquarium. The man from the pet store is a friend of a friend and he helped me with everything I needed. I have the sump, ultra violet light, heater, protein skimmer. He set up the tank for me 1 month ago and I started it with live sand and then I added some cured live rock. I had the tank cycle for a week and a half and then added a few fish (2 maroon clowns, 1 blue hippo tang and a yellow tang). The fish are doing great so I just last week added a few more fish (1 coral beauty angel, 1 oriole angel, 3 chromis, and 1 sand sifting blennie). They are all getting along great and seem to be very active, so here comes my question. I want to add more live rock but I am scared of introducing something harmful to my tank. I wanted to purchase the Florida Aqua cultured live rock from SWF but it doesn't say if it is cured, I know the Ultra premium Fiji rock is cured, but the rock I currently have is Fiji rock and I wanted to mix it up a little. Do you have any advice as what to do or to do anything at all? I want to step up my rock so I can add a few Anemones to the tank.
Thanks
Victor Marrone

 

[leopard_babe]

I have some advice....Slow down. You have added many fish in a short amount of time to a very young tank. You also have way to many fish in a 75 gallon tank. You need to take this hobby slowly, or you could have mass destruction. You can add about 5lbs of liverock at a time. You can add it very slowly. I have been adding 5lbs pieces to my tank for a while, and I have not been having a problem. If you add much more then that at once, you can cause your tank to re-cycle. So take your time.
HTH
Leopard

 

[leopard_babe]

About the anemone, I think that you are supposed wait till your tank has been established for 4-6 months before making it a reef. I THINK, but I don't know much about reefs.
HTH
Leopard

 

[sjt1107]

Hi Victor. Welcome to the board. :cheer: :cheer:
I would be worried your tank might re-cycle by adding a lot of live rock at one time, also. Your best bet would be to buy small amounts of live rock (LR) from your local fish store. One rule of thumb when purchasing LR...be sure and smell it. If it has a fowl odor, it is not fully cured.
I bought fully cured live rock through the mail and it sustained some die-off during shipment. Luckily, I was using it to cycle my tank, so everything went well.
With all those nice fish you bought, you sure don't want in crazy water parameters, the angels and the tangs need prestine water.
Good Luck! I've found this board to be a world of help. Hopefully, you will too.

 

[elvictre]

Thanks, if it makes any difference the fish I have are pretty small I would say the largest is 2 1/2 inches. I wanted to add a cleaner shrimp and a starfish this week to help keep the tank clean, do you recommend this or am i going overboard? I figured by adding everything at or about the same time would keep them from getting aggressive towards each other. The reason for more rock was to keep the tank with enough algae for the fish to survive. As soon as I plugged in the UV light it seems as if there is practically no more algae on the sand bed.
Again Thanks for your help
Vic

 

[leopard_babe]

I am very precaucious, and I only add 1 fish sometimes 2 at a time every month. When a tank is new the levels are not as stable. you want to be careful when adding new things, because the change in bio-load can cause your tank to have a mini-cycle, and can cause your fish to get sick, or even die. Since you don't want that I would wait a couple of weeks befre adding rock, or any other fish. Let your tank get used to the fish that are in it, before adding any more. Your tank needs to establish itself. I recommend checking your levels every day, or every other day. If you do have a spike you will need to do a water change, and take care of the spike.
HTH
Leopard
PS: when in doubt ask questions

 

[sjt1107]

Vic,
Instead of a starfish to clean your tank, I would recommend getting some red leg hermit crabs, blug leg hermit crabs, a couple emerald crabs, some astrea snails, cerith snails and maybe a mexican turbo snail and a fighting conch. These were the first things I added to my tank after if cycled. They clean the glass, rocks and sandbed of algae and detritus.
I bought a starfish three months after my tank cycled and it did not live a week. They need a very established tank and lots and lots of algae.
The cleaner shrimp is great for cleaning the fish. My cleaner shrimp is named Mr. Bookman and he sets up shop everyday...I have a fun time watching my fish cruise in for a cleaning from Mr. Bookman!

 

[elvictre]

Thanks, I forgot to mention I do have 16 hermit crabs (some red some blue) and 8 small snails. I figured the starfish would work on the glass better, but if they are that hard to care for then I might just skip it and just go with the shrimp.
Thanks
Vic