Jim,
Sorry soo long between responses here... things are a tad on the hectic side at my end.
Okay, looks like you have a SUPER start on your little part of the ocean!!!
Don't ever worry about trying to compare your tank to someone else's!!! This is YOUR part of the Ocean, not mine, or Fred's, or Uncle Sam's. LOL Do what YOU want, have things look the way that pleases YOU, and at the same time takes the best care of the animals in your care that you can! As long as you do that, all is good!
Now, a few things I would look into doing with your setup:
"They" say (who ever "they" are is yet to be determined...) you should have 1lb to 1.5lb's per gallon of water of Live Rock in your tank for filtration. Yes, this Live Rock does kinda act as your filtration system. I would recommend you look into getting another good 5lb (or more) chunk of rock into your tank, so you have more surface area for filtration.
Live Rock is very porous, being basically old dead coral, it loaded with thousands of little holes which create a much greater surface area than the size of the rock would suggest. On all of those various surface areas, bacteria will form that helps us with “purification” if you would, of our water for our animals.
A very simple explanation of that "purification" here...
When your fish go potty, it is almost pure ammonia. In a tank your size, very little (Lets call it 1 oz total... for explanation purposes only) ammonia is poisonous to our fish. As that ammonia begins building up in your tank, a bacteria forms on all of the surface areas inside your tank, that absolutely LUV eating Ammonia... and their waist product is Nitrite. Again, at a low level Nitrite (Lets say 10 oz... again for explanation purposes only) is also poisonous to our fish... and another bacteria also begin building up that just LUV eating Nitrite, and that bacteria's waist product is Nitrate. Nitrate is tolerable in much higher levels in our tanks (upwards of say... 5 gallons worth... and yet again this number is only to help with the explanation of this process), and our normal weekly/monthly water changes help to keep this under control. Once our tank has matured, there is even the ability in that Live Rock to take the process 1 step further for us, and convert the Nitrate into Nitrogen, which is then absorbed through the water, and released back into the atmosphere!
The above cycle, is a very simplified explanation for you of the "Nitrogen Cycle". Of course, all those numbers aren't accurate, but I wanted to use them to give you more of a feeling for how those various components relate. Hopefully it didn't confuse you more. (Sometimes, I just need to be SLAPPED, I type too much!!!)
All of the initial cycle takes time. Your tank begins with no detectable traces of Ammonia, Nitrite or Nitrate (hopefully, as long as the water you used to fill your tank is good RO or RO/DI water). As things decay, or in the example above, as our fish do what comes naturally... Ammonia builds up. Once the bacteria develop, you will see the Ammonia level raise and raise and raise... then in less than a day it seems to drop off to nuttin! Wooohooo! Phase 1 of your tank cycling is complete. Then, the same things happen with Nitrites. Once Nitrites have totally dropped back to Zero, your tank is considered "Cycled". Even though you will still see Nitrate, at this time it is okay to start SLOWLY stocking your tank with animals.
NOTICE "SLOWLY" capitalized above. Do things SLOWLY in this hobby... you'll get the best results, and have the least heartbreaks!!!
Do you have any test kits for testing Ammonia, Nitrite & Nitrate? Since you stated that you just setup this tank in the last week, I would guess your system is still in the "Ammonia build-up" phase. This will be the most questionable phase for your animals health. If they aren't poisoned by this Ammonia buildup, their life span can be significantly reduced due to having to work their way through this. I'm not trying to tell you this to make you panic, but want you to be aware of the possibilities as your tank matures.
IF the Live Rock and Live Sand you put into your tank, came from a very well established tank (not a Rock Curing Vat), its possible the various bacteria required for the Nitrogen cycle is already present on it... and you will just need to add more rock to have enough filtration for a tank your size (again, good rule of thumb is 1lb to 1.5lb of Live Rock per gallon of water). If your Live Rock did come from a curing Vat type thing, thats okay as well, just be aware that during shipping, the lack of circulated heated water will of caused die-off of many things on that rock... like the bacteria we are hoping to develop... and again, when things die, the Nitrogen cycle begins (i.e.. ammonia).
Right now, do your best to resist putting any more animals into your tank, until you are sure you have completed this initial cycle. There are a few more “New Tank Syndrome” that are still ahead of you, but until this initial cycle has completed for you, I won’t worry you with those quite yet.
Keep us all posted here as to your progress! Read, use the Search feature to get yourself more information! Ask questions!!! No question you can have about your setup is EVER a dumb question!!! NONE of us here were born knowing how to take care of a piece of the Ocean… we all had to learn! Luckily, there are places like Reef Frontiers that give us the advantage of having other’s help us, by letting us know how their experiences went, and we can better learn from those!
