Five weeks and 1 power outage later, the tank is fully cycled. Having believed the promises on the package of live sand, 1 B&W clown and 3 chromis joined the tank during week 1. While ammonia never spiked, the nitrites followed a typical slow-cycle course, high for about 12 days before dropping to zero. I started with dry rock and only two pounds of live rock. All four fish are doing well. It is hard to say how much stress they experienced, but I certainly experienced stress everyday that the nitrites measured high and I feared killing "Nemo" in front of my children.
My nitrates are running around 10 ppm. I am doing "micro" water changes frequently (1 gallon) because that is easy for me to handle. I will be getting a few mushroom corals on Tuesday and will post my first picture once they are acclimated (optimism). One calagreni mushroom, one sanctithomae mushroom, and one ricordea florida.
