Building a Reef Tank - Am I on the Right Track? Whats next?

[lutz493]

My tank is 55 Gallons.
I am working to obtain a Reef tank with both soft and hard corals. When I purchased my tank the salesman at the pet store was very helpful but I do not think he steered me on the right track towards my ultimate goal.
After some changes, from my orginal set-up and some additions this is what I currently have. My tank has been up for 3 months next week. I cycled it using 4 Yellow Tail Damsels, 2 Clarkii Clowns (Got lucky on these two, haven't seen signs of agression since I've had them). I've since removed my 4 Yellow Tail Damsels and gave them back to the store, leaving me with my 2 Clarkiis.
In the last couple of days I have added 65lbs of Marshall Island and Tonga Branch Live rock to the tank. I have ruffly 10 lbs of Lava rock I used to help build a good base.
My current clean-up crew consists of 20 Turbo Snails, 8 Blue Leg Hermits, 4 Scarlet Hermits and 3 Peppermint Shrimp.
I have also purchased a Prizim Pro Skimmer by Red Sea. I purchased an RO unit as well. I've changed my lighting to a unit made by Helios which currently has two 55 watt White Bulbs and two 55 watt Blue Bulbs. Filter is a Magnum 350 with duel Bio-Wheels.
Here are my Questions:
- Is my equipment sufficient for live and hard corals?
- My substrate is crushed coral, not sand, is this a serious problem? I'm new to this, I didn't know about live sand at time (
- BIG question here is - My live rock has many many many many things who are coming out, I am trying to learn what they all are but for now I've identified some problems. I do have glass anemonaes on the rock. I know I can use a needle and a chemical to inject which will kill them. I am sure I probably have ones I will never see........ I was told by the man at my fish store that peppermint shrimp will actually eat the anemonaes after time. Is this true? I bought those 3 Peppermint shrimp today for that sole purpose.
- I also believe I have Bristol Worms in my tank. What is the best way to dispose of these? Is there an animal I can get to put in there?
-I was going to stock my fish and inverts and let them settle in for awhile before I add any live corals. I do have alot of Calupra in my tank. My ammonia levels and nitrite levels have remained zero since I put the rock in a few days ago - Asking my fish guy about future fish he told me that I can put in both a Sailfin Tang and a Blue Morph Tang in the next few days and they will handle the Calupra. I also was thinking of adding an Emerald Crab with them.
Will doing this endanger my tank? The guy said i got so much live rock in there no......
Some other general questions I have -
Thing I would like to do also is add an anemonae for my Clowns so they have a home. I am not sure if that is something I can do relatively soon or I need to wait on. I also would like to add a Black Cap 2 weeks or so after my Tangs are established. Is that a good idea?
Any advice on where to go from here would be great - My idea is to get a good clean-up crew in there, take care of the bad hitchhikers and get something to take care of any Long Hair Algae that may grow along with the Calupra. After I have this established I was going to add a few more fish, and then my corals but that is a story for another day.
Please lemme know your ideas.
Thank you.

 

[waterwolf]

First get those blueleg crabs out of there. They will eventually kill your snails, redleg crabs and eachother. Since you already have cc building a sump w/ ls would be a good idea. Arrow crabs are good at naturally controling bristle worms, I have heard banded coral shrimp also do this but I cannot confirm this. A 6 line wrasse can be helpful at ridding unwanted pests too. You can also get a bristleworm trap at your LFS. Glass anenomes, pepermint shrimp are supposed to eat these, but a nice fish at killing glass anenomes is a copperbanded butterfly fish(this fish need good water quality). Watch adding aggresive tangs to a reef set-up. Some of the easier corals for you to consider are any leather corals, bubble coral, mushrooms & polyps. These are really easy and can get you off to a good start. Sebae and long tentacle anenomes are best to start with. good luck and i hope this helped.

 

[lutz493]

Thanks alot Waterwolf.
I was not aware that the blue leg hermits will eat my snails and scarlets... I will probably buy an Arrow Crab instead of the Emerald Crab. My fish guy told me a Butterfly was real good fish to get but I am just so scared it will die....
Was told that the Blue Morph and Sailfin Tangs are the most peaceful of the Tangs and they wil not fight because of their different body shape - I am not sure how accurate that is.
Another question is for my Crabs/Snails should I beef up my stock on these in a couple months when I have more growth? I look at this websites reef package section they alot of those have 40 crabs, is that necessary?
So many questions.
I have a rock tht has a good 15 or more Feather Dusters very tiny ones.. I think thats great though and as they grow will look very nice in the tank. Is any of the things I am putting in my tank going to destroy the Feather Dusters?
As far as a Sixline Wrasse - Is he going to be compatible with Tangs should I get those or even a Butterfly? Will some of the other Wrasse do the job? And can they live with a Black Cap?
Thanks for the help.

 

[lutz493]

Thanks-
The Tang I was referring too was the Hippo sorry about that. I will debate then putting any Tangs at all in the tank and will for sure not put the Sailfin in. The Gobies, Wrasse and Gramma seem to be relatively small fish from what I've seen. Should I decide to go that route is it a problem for me to put the Wrasse, Gramma and Gobie in at the sametime?
Am I accurate to say hypothetically putting in something like a Gramma, Wrasse and Gobie at once is the equivalent of placing something like 1 Sailfin into the Tank?
Thanks again for the advice.

 

[lutz493]

Thanks-
The Tang I was referring too was the Hippo sorry about that. I will debate then putting any Tangs at all in the tank and will for sure not put the Sailfin in. The Gobies, Wrasse and Gramma seem to be relatively small fish from what I've seen. Should I decide to go that route is it a problem for me to put the Wrasse, Gramma and Gobie in at the sametime?
Am I accurate to say hypothetically putting in something like a Gramma, Wrasse and Gobie at once is the equivalent of placing something like 1 Sailfin into the Tank?
Thanks again for the advice.

 

[lutz493]

Thanks for the informations so far.
Here is my biggest question from what I've read... When I first set up my tank which was back in October... I cycled the tank using no life rock and 4 Yellow Tail Damsels and 2 Clowns. 6 Fish to cycle a 55 Gallon tank was probably stupid now that I read this board but, my sales guy told me it was fine and listened. I got lucky and it cycled early this month and I lost no fish. As of ruffly 4 days ago I removed the 4 Yellow Tail Damsels taking my fish count from 6 down to 2.
I added a large amount of Live rock to the tank and my ammonia/nitrite levels have stayed at zero. So now I have a tank that supported 6 fish without having live rock, to a tank with live rock which now is only supporting 2 fish. I guess my question is here my in the 2 1/2 months it took my tank to fully cycle it then matured enough for it to support 6 fish otherwise I'd have things dead? For me to add a Royal Gramma and a 6 Line to my tank shouldn't even be increasing the bio-load the tank is used too correct? Unless in the 4 days it can change that much - That I do not know..... I was going to add a 3rd fish possibly the Black Cap giving me a total of 5 fish in my tank. Which still would not be increasing my bio-load correct?
I took the 4 Damsels out because I was getting the live rock and I wanted to replace them with fish that would be beneficial to cleaning the tank with my inverts. I assume after a good month to month and 1/2 my live rock will be cleaned up enough and established to start slowly adding some corals.
Also since a Tang of any sort is not a good idea for the tank, I do have a large large amount of Cualpra or however it is spelled, what then is the best way to keep that under control? Putting an 1-2 Emerald Crabs? Will the Wrasse or Gramma handle that?
My thinking may not be correct please correct me if this is wrong. As I said, I removed 4 Damsels to make the room for the fish that'll help with the cleaning. I figure adding 3 at once will help with the agression. Am I going about this removing of the 4 Damsels and adding of these 3 fish the wrong way?
Thank for your input I am having a hardtime finding somebody who I can just talk to about this and receive correct information, you guys are helping alot.