Just bought a 40 gallon tall! need advice

[sukeband]

Hey everyone! I just got a good deal on an established 40 gallon tall with stand.

 

The guy who sold it to me didn't know all that much. It was a pretty much fish only set up with a few zoos and some unidenified corals. LOTS of amphipods and a few bristle worms.

 

In the tank was about 5 hermit crabs, an unidentified snail, and about 60 pounds of live rock. The hole thing was lit by a 60 watt incandescent bulb. It had 1 large rio power head, no heater no skimmer no sump.

 

It had an eclipse 3 hood with no light, and no bio wheel. I wondered how he thought he was able to keep corals without any god lighting, but it was a good deal and i didn't want to push any buttons.

 

 

There were also 5 cramped fish, A Clown, a cleaner wrasse, a yellow tang and a royal blue gramma, and a flame angel

 

They way i transported it was to drain almost the entire tank. He put all the sand in a 5 gallon bucket. We put all the fish in another 5 gallon bucket. We saved some of the water and placed the rock in some plastic bags and newspaper.

 

I took the whole thing home, fish, water, rock, sand, tank and canopy.

 

I set up that tank put in the sand then the rock then filled it about 1/2 full of water and went to make some more. My question is. Even after using the water and good looking rock the guy had, The ammonia read about .50. Should i wait before adding any fish? I still have the 5 fish in the QT bucket with a powerhead. How long should i keep them in there?

 

I'm trying to get rid of the fish that shouldn't have been kept in the fist place in the classifieds section.

 

I ordered up some new lights for now and am feeling things out. Let me know if so far i'm doing things right for a moved tank.

[tinyreef]

bump

 

for tranplants/moves/emergencies you should try to have some ammonia detoxifiers on-hand. try some of that and push the system along so the fish can get out of the bucket. it'd be unnecessary if you had a QT or large tub but a small bucket is very stressful (altho ammonia laden water is even more so).

 

btw test the bucket water to see if it's an improvement or not. try to match the water parameters or drip acclimate when you do transfer. good luck!

[sukeband]

Thanks once again for your help tiny.

[jlevs]

use a HOB Refugium for marv results

[sukeband]

I was thinking about going for a 20 gallon or so below tank fuge/sump. Would that be worse than an hob?