live rock

[veskas]

My tank is 3 1/2 months old. Is it to late to add a couple of live rocks? Will it change the water quality? I have a 55 gal. tank with the following: 404 fluval, biowheel, protein skimmer, air stone, uv, 1 powerhead, crushed coral, 1 marine beta, 1 fire fish (had 2 one jumped out of the tank today and was dead by the time we got home) 1 scooter blenny, cleaner shrimps, snails, sally lightfoot, crabs. The temp is 78, ph 8.2 ammonia 0 and nitrite is somewhere between 0 and .25 (I think). I can't seem to get it to zero. I do water changes every 2 weeks now I was doing them every week. Can anyone tell me why the fire fish would decide to jump out? Oh yeah, have a power compact light system which hangs. That's new and so the tank is open. Should I find some sort of cover for the tank?
Whatever help I can get let me know.
One more think I'm thinking of getting a hippo tang. Good or bad idea? I also, want to get 2 percula clowns.

 

[the rock]

the rock says....
live rock will definately help your filtration as opposed to the filter you currently have. uncured live rock may cause a spike in your levels and can put your fish at risk, but it depends on how much you get. also you can cure it yourself rather easily and then put it in. why'd you get power compacts? they aren't needed for a fish-only. are you planning on getting corals? the goby likes to jump out of the tank and also there could be some electricity going through your tank and it shocked him out of it but more than likely he just jumped. a glass top will help you keep the fast evaporation from happening which is a real pain, unless you have an RO set up. keep an eye on that betta with your shrimp as he grows. percula will be fine but again keep an eye on your betta with them

 

[krazzydart]

I agree with "the rock"also add some carlopa it will help keep the nitrates down....as for the live rock///make sure it is cured for at least 4 weeks... I did it myself in a seperate 20 gallon tank... keep a couple of power heads in it to keep the water flowing and every 3-4 days change the water...also it needs NO light at this stage.keeps down the algee build up. it is also a good practice to add any TANG last into any tank because they do become somewhat territorial.

 

[the rock]

the rock says....
i agree about the tang being added last for territorial reasons but not the length of time for curing. keeping no lights over the rock will keep the micro algae growth to a minimum but did you have any coralline left after a month? the coralline will slowly disappear so you need to make sure you keep some on there as it will spread quickly back under the right conditions once placed back in your tank. you can also use a garbage can to cure the rock after scrubbing all the death from it on a continuous basis and use a protein skimmer and powerheads on the garbage can if you are doing more than 20 lbs worth. it should cure much quicker in a garbage can, it will be hard to cure rock in such a small container such as a 20 gallon, that is why it took so long. but if it works for you that's great!

 

[etpuffer]

????????????????????????

 

[cathy]

ETPUFFER WHY ARE YOU AT SUCH A LOSS FOR WORDS
OR DO YOU ONLY HAVE THAT KEY ON YOUR KEYBOARD

 

[fshhub]

et puffer, is stuck on ???????mode, in one day, he managed to rack up about 30 or 40 posts, and all of them say???????????????????????????
i guess they are as informative as a pile fo lr
and as for hte questions
forget the tang, they are beautiiful, but you already have one large fish besides, IMO i woudl never add a tang to a tank under 75 gallons
the firefish generally only jump when they are spooked or scared, but this is not always the case i have seen ones tha thave jumped out when they were the only fish in the tank(still could be stress though)
and for the lighting, i love my pc's they really show off the fishes colors nicely(don't they), i owuld never buy another system with just NO lighting again, not even a fish only
the clowns are a good idea for your tank
and i agree wiel with the opinions given on the lr, but i would definitely get some
HTH