Post move suggestions?

Hello All,

I wanted to post this as a means for people to provide contructive critisism so that myself and others could potentially learn from this. For starters, I setup a 10 gallon tank in my office at work. The tank seemed to be going great and an added bonus was that the water system at work provided RO/DI water.

Unfortunately, the company changed its policy and I was no longer allowed to have a water heater. I was given only a few days to move the tank. So here is what I did:


Day 1:

• Purchased brand new cheap-o 10 gallon tank at Petsmart ($13).
• Purchased 10 gallons of premade Petco branded Pacific Ocean Water.
• Removed half of the live Rock from existing tank, making sure it remained wet during transportation in freshly made saltwater.
• Setup new tank at home using dead sand, petco pacific water, and backup water heater.
• Removed filtration from original tank making sure the biowheel remained wet.
• Turned on filter with new filtration pads.

Day 2:

• Removed Carbon from filter pad.
• Added a bottle of Bio Spira.
• Left tank running for 4 more hours.
• Bagged clownfish in the unfiltered tank at work (only unfiltered for about 14 hours or so).
• Introduced clownfish to new tank along with a new firefish (I've heard that clownfish get territorial so if I wanted to add a tankmate for him it would be best to introduce at the same time to a new environment).

It is now a week later. Ammonia in the tank reads 0 ppm, nitrite reads 0 ppm, nitrate reads between 10 and 15 ppm and everyone seems healthy and gets along.



So, now it is time for a series of questions:

Could I have done this any better assuming I had more time to move the tank? What would recommendations be?

I intentionally left half the live rock out of the tank because I wanted to take some time to sculpt it better. If I clean the rock off and let it die out, can I add the rock back in with little consequence?

What would be a good way to introduce the purple algae that I have seen at various places? Is there an easy way to do this, or would I be asking for trouble in attempting to add any algae at all?

If I wanted to attempt to add in corals, which would be easier ones for me to add in and to what quality would my water have to be to accomodate them? The goal is to start slowly.

Again, I'm new to the hobby. Initially set this tank up in my office around March prior to it being moved. Any overall advice would be greatly appreciated.