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We try and go whenever we are on vacation. Nikki grew up in Abu Dahbi in the UAE so she was snorkeling over there which has fantastic reefs. We have been snorkeling/SNUBA/SCUBA in Aruba and St. Maartin.
You can never be to aggressive when you are setting a tank up, mistakes now just snowball. You have the time and don't have to worry about live stock so go aggressive as you want.
For next time, Dr. Tim sells the ammonia on his website with the one and only which is perfect to start a cycle.
I have those worms, but have not clogged up my overflow (knock on wood). Get in there and pull them out or use a pair of clippers to cut the shell to kill the worm.
That would be a problem as well. Go pick up some calibration solution for the refractometer. We got in trouble by using RO water and setting it to zero, even that was not good enough.
Alk gets absorbed into corals a lot quicker than calcium so that is why it swings more. Calc and alk have a seesaw effect (if that makes sense) so yes dosing calc is necessary or you can really drive your calc down and your alk up.
What the others said above is correct. Also, depending on the chalice, it can change. Some of the thin skin deep water indo ones have to be completely in the shade or they will bleach out. Others can take a bit more light, but generally they are down in like 200 par areas.