tankedchem, I don't test for those since I have a total of 3 coral, a zoa colony, a mushroom, and an acan that is thriving(or so it seems). I check my tank nearly every 30 minutes or more for anything amiss,
So, I've been a chemist for 8 years, and I still can't quantify metals solely using my eyeballs. Despite "only" having 3 corals, it is critical to realize that alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium are important for everything in your tank. They maintain pH in the aquarium, and if any one of those parameters is off, your pH can and will wildly fluctuate. That will result in a sudden and tragic loss of fish life. In addition, while only having one apparent sink for alk and ca2+ (your acan), you should realize that you actually have multiple sources for loss in your tank. A good example is coraline algae, which sucks up both cal and alk almost faster than corals do. In addition, you can't observe your acan forming its skeleton, so you have no way of knowing if everything looking okay really means your params are in order or not. If you choose not to do water changes, that's fine, BUT you need to test in order to establish how much your elements decrease over time. Then you will know how long it is safe to skip WCs.
the reason for moving everything in at once is that I really like the idea of the fish being there from the git go, plan to age the water and rock all together with the fish for a while after the QT, so...maybe this will work better(and that is the point of asking these questions here far far in advance) QT for 2 months in the few 100g bins, at the same time have the LR for the system in seperate bins for that same time, cycling the water in the bins and really aging the water nicely, then over the course of the next month or two after QT move the fish into the bins with the rock...this way once the tank is ready the water is already cycled and ready to go into the larger DT, that way there is no shock from fresh saltwater, just a roomier tank.
Ok, fundamental biology misunderstanding here. Cycling your tank is a way of encouraging the necessary biological cultures to grow. These cultures are not in the water column. They live in the sand, rocks, and surfaces of the tank. "Aged" water is just dirty water. Moving pre-cycled rock into your DT is fine, BUT it's no different if you cycle the rock and sand in the tank then add fish. Except, of course, you're preventing a massive amount of extra work for yourself if you do it the "traditional" way. Also, if the rock/sand stays in your bins for a long time, when you move the you're quite likely to start a new cycle all over again anyway.
The grow out bins will be plumed together(no point in buying 3 or 4 skimmers and the like, plus it will make it easier to add a good flow throughout.
The reason for me wanting the fish all together from the start is that (and there will need to be more research on this) I want to try to specifically replicate a natural reef school of tangs, normally tangs are aggressive to one another in a smaller tank, but because of the number of fish in a real school the aggression levels are reduced, so..that will be the idea here, I may need a bigger tank to be able to introduce THAT level of fish, I'll need to do research on exactly when I would go from not enough, to sufficient numbers of fish to reach that reduction in aggression.
I will start a new thread so that everyone can help me determine which species would be best for this..so far in my reading the blue hippo and convict have been mentioned as accepting of others of their own kind when introduced together.
I really want to impress upon everyone reading this that I will do ALL of the research for this well ahead of ANY purchases, I consider the advice I get here to be invaluable. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing 4 months ago when I got my 40g. Now 4 months later, I have still very little experience, but a ton of knowledge that I have yet to try to apply , but I know that if I ask enough of the right questions I can piece it all together and make this work.
