Keimaxbode
Aquarium Advice Activist
Hi, I'm new to saltwater and long story short, I am unexpectedly upgrading from a relatively new (2 mo) 29g FOWLR to a 55g (3wks) FOWLR and need to add more rock. I know I should add gradually, so I currently have 10 lbs of live rock in tank and just purchased 25 lbs of base rock that I want to add.
Questions:
My main concern is not stressing out the tang more than he already is when I add additional rock. He is ick free at the moment. I had to upgrade in this odd manner due to the ick outbreak. I only had a very small ammonia spike at the beginning because I used old filter media with a some sand and rock from 29g so that has gone ok. Plan on maintaining the hypo for 6 weeks then gradually returning to normal over week 7.
I've got other questions but wanted to ask about the rock first.
Thanks so much!
Questions:
- What do I need to do to the base rock to prepare it for the tank?
- How do I keep from stressing out my livestock that includes a Powder Blue Tang that I was told I could have in this 55 gal by my lfs (now know that was a big mistake). Am currently treating 5 fish in this 55 for ick that came with the Tang, now starting week 3 of hypo at 1.010.
- Should I wait until hypo is finished before introducing the base rock? I put a few pieces of rock from my 29g (I know the hypo will kill the "live" in this rock) to help with biological filtration when setting this tank up quickly for hypo plus a small amount of my sand to barely cover bottom of tank per advice from forums. None of the other fish have shown any signs of ick but are also being treated and 29g is being left fishless for 2 months per forum info. It has cleaner shrimp and snails with 30 lbs of live sand.
My main concern is not stressing out the tang more than he already is when I add additional rock. He is ick free at the moment. I had to upgrade in this odd manner due to the ick outbreak. I only had a very small ammonia spike at the beginning because I used old filter media with a some sand and rock from 29g so that has gone ok. Plan on maintaining the hypo for 6 weeks then gradually returning to normal over week 7.
I've got other questions but wanted to ask about the rock first.
Thanks so much!