Hi folks,
I am extremely new to this hobby....oh lets say about 3 weeks now. :-D But I've been reading your postings and thought that this would be a great forum to share ideas and learn a few things. Obviously I'll be getting a lot more out than I put back in the short run.
I bought an 75 gallon tank with a 55 gallon Berlin(?) type sump setup. It came with a nice sail-fin tang, clown fish, banded shrimp, pulsing xenia, a couple of red legged hermit crabs, star polyps and a very nice maxima clam. The tank hadn't been maintained and there was hair algae covering 90% of the live rock.
I was able to save and transfer all of the old water, and after 2 days the water was clear and tested fine. I added 8 turbo snails, 6 astrea snails, 8 small hermits, a scooter blenny and a lawnmower blenny. Since then I've added 2 more turbos, 2 emerald crabs, 2 cleaner shrimp, 6 more small hermits, 2 scissor tail gobi's and a yellow-tailed damsel.
The job those turbos did on the algae was amazing...very little algae left and I have some very nice purple color throughout my tank now...
Now, here is my question...and I am going to preface this by saying that I probably want too much, too soon...but I know someone who is selling their coral because they are getting out of the hobby. They have white finger leather, purple leather, some sponge, star polyps, mushrooms and a few other things. The trouble is that they live back in my home state which is about an 8 hour drive each way. First, I am very concerned about adding too much too soon that it might upset the tank biology. How many new corals could I (or should I) add at once? Also, how would I transport them the 8 hours back? I was thinking that I would do an RO dip on each of them and place them all in a coleman cooler filled with water from his tank. Any thoughts? Would I need an airstone for the trip, or is that only required for fish? Also, how would I acclimate them when I got them home? Could I then do a drip acclimation process on the whole cooler?
I apologize for all of the questions...obviously I have a lot to learn, but I want to do it right...and if I can't do it right without shocking them to death, then I am going to let them go to some other home.
Thanks a lot!
Ed