Newbie!!! Any advice?

[rhscare]

Well Im in my 4th week of cycling and everything is going fairly well, except for my damsels in there are starting to show signs of ick, (Im new so Im going of my research). I had a question about live sand though. When I first set it up my lfs told me not to bother. I just put the regular Red Sea reef spheres. I was just curious if I should add any live sand or not. Im not sure the exact amount of rock I have but I would guess its around 90. I think Im good to go on that end. I guess I will give you a run down on what I have so you guys can give me some pointers:
46 Gallon bow front
Coralife 50/50 twin 96wt.
Red Sea Prism protein skimmer
Fluval 404
Ebo Jager 150wt heater
Oh, and lets not forget the thermometer
The water has been really clear with minimal alge on the glass. I have about 13 hermits I would say, 3 queen conchs, 2 bumblebee, and three of those pointy ones that I cant remember the name of at 1:30am. I am looking forward to starting to replace the damsels but now that they may have ick, im not sure what to do. Any advice in general would be great, specifically, whats the rule of thumb for waiting for corals, and how many fish should I look at putting in? I have heard so many different answers its not even funny. Thanks for any input!!!

 

[thomas712]

Welcome to the board
The Queen conches just get big, real big, ever see those shell people blow into in movies or listen for the sea? One would be fine for your size tank.
I also can not understand why your LFS said not to bother with the live sand to begin with. Think about it. Sand is a great natural filter and IMO,IME it is best to start your tank cycling with this in. If you put it in later then you will be rearanging your rock again and just plain waiting for it to settle. Youv'e been running for 4 weeks? thats 4 weeks your sandbed could have had to start to establish your sandbed, this process has simply been delayed. If you do not wish to rearange your rock when adding your sand bed then you can use a piece of pvc tubing and add it that way, to keep the cloudiness down. Perhaps you could look at the LIVE SAND button on your left and check out the prices on this site for it.
If you indeed have ick then you have been given a good suggestion by Jackief1 about the quarentine tank. Since ick needs a host to live then you will be going without fish for about 4 weeks anyway, another reason to add the sandbed now. For now don't worry about adding more fish, add knowledge first, stabalize your tank paramiters, and post them for us.
Looking at your equipment I would say that you could benifit from a couple of powerheads and would recommend the Maxijet 900 to you as they use less power than the 1200's
Thomas

 

[fshhub]

good advice so far,
queen conchs get to be 12 inches
in a tank that size, I personally would not have a queen. fighting maybe 2, butno queens.
once cycle completely, I would get several nassarius snails and about 10 turbo snails for the sand bed and glass. amd maybe also a few stomatella snails, they are work horses on the rock, thoughyou oenne do not see them.
HTH
and welcome aboard

 

[scotts]

If I may chime in with my completely uneducated opinion. I added live sand right away, along with the rock. My cycle was pretty fast, but then I just got lucky. You mentioned that you had very little algae growth on your glass. One phase you will have to go through is the brown slime algae. I think this is normal for all new aquariums, just a phase in the process of cycling.
I would recommend that you read every thread on this board that you can. Especially about cycling. Go to the top right of this board and do a search for cycle or cycling. There will be a wealth of information for you. I guarantee that any question that you have will have already been asked, you just have to find it.
I am jealous of you. I started out a year ago with just listening to the guy at the local fish store. He is good, but there is much much more information here on this forum. I kind of jumped right in and while I did get lucky, I have also made my share of mistakes. One thing is to not impulse buy. Learn the name of the fish and then come here and check it out. For example I impulse bought a red coris wrasse. It is about 2" long and it is completely gorgeous. However after finding the board I did some research on it. That is when I found out that it grows to 18" long. Just a little too big for my 60 gallon.
Once agian I am jealous of you and you seem to be going in the right direction.
I will now get off my soapbox and fix my kids some lunch.
Scott

 

[scotts]

Oh yeah I forgot.
Live sand is good because it has all kinds of bugs and stuff in it that are good for an aquarium. Without these bugs you will have troubles. The bugs eat some of the bad chemicals in your water.
Scott

 

[rhscare]

Thanks for all the advise guys. Im starting to wonder about my advice Ive been getting now. I think I may go pick up some live sand. As far as the conchs go, they never mentioned about not having any. They recomended them. I joked with them about when I lived in Hawaii we would pick up those huge shells you guys were talking about. In sadder news, I finnaly lost one the damsels today. I just came home and found a curious huddle of crabs around something and sure enough, they had eaten it clean except for the mouth and some tissue. I scooped that outa there. Why didnt it float to the top? Could it of died in a cave or something? Is my best bet just to get rid of the ones I have left and leave it empty for awhile? Well this is all a little discouraging considering everything was going well for awhile. So what would be a good plan of action? Get rid of these fish, add some live sand, and maybe a little more of a clean up crew? This kinda sucks cause if you cant trust your lfs advice, who can you trust? Thanks again!!!

 

[elan]

its sorta funny reading this thread... very typical of my first few posts on this board...
but now when i read it, i really see that everyone is saying the truth... well.. sugar coated a little....IMO, and IME, if you want to do things right, it will take alot longer than the "minimum" time usually noted... sorta like, how long to establish a tank before putting in fish... if your info is telling you a month, give it two...or even three if you have that much patience... everything in your tank grows over time..if your cycle readings are telling you it just finished, giving it another few weeks or a month will ensure the needed organisms grow to a desirable level, not just the minimum level.
IMO, get all your fish out of there... dont get any for a couple more months...(that right..2) search for using a store bought shrimp.. to contiune the ammonia introduction your tank needs to get......you can probably leave your damsels.. with about a 50% survival rate.... but be prepaired to remove all your rock when you want to take them out.
but get some live sand in there ASAP... read about DSB - Deep Sand Beds....
as far as the conchs... i think they are the coolest part of my tank.. .i got a bunch myself... probably 7.. i have no clue what i will do when they outgrow my tank... after seeing what they eat, i dont think i want to eat conch chowder anymore either.

 

[elan]

i almost forgot the most important thing..
...get "the conscientious marine aquarist" by fenner...
its a great book which is Current....alot of advice you may be getting are from people who havent heard about the new advances in filtration and aquarium keeping... its best to be current