Hi everyone. I'm new to the hobby and site, and I've found these forums to be a great knowledge pool. I have a lot of questions, so I'll try to split them up into different threads.

I have a 6 week old tank that was cycled with a Blue Devil and two small red hermits. The Damsel is still the only fish inhabitant. The tank is a 55 long Aqueon all in one kit (Pet Extreme special) and my intent is to start off as a FOWLR until I can get the hang of keeping water quality stabile, and then at some point start adding corals and more inverts. My first question is, based on what I already have, will I be able to add/change equipment more suitable for reef down the road without harm to the current setup, or needing to start a new cycle? I plan to stock my FOWLR with reef sensitive fish from the get-go.
  • A HOB Aqueon filter is my starter. It claims to be a four stage-Mechanical, chemical, bio and water polisher. I know the bio part is BS...the only surface area for bio colonization is on the 2 filter cartriges. When it comes time to change filter pads, away goes the nitrifying bacteria. Anyway, it does do a good job with keeping the water clear. Since I have LR, I'm not really concerned about the bio part. Eventually, I'd like to step up to something higher quality that's less likely to fail over time. (maybe a canister?) All the LFS I've spoken with say it will be ok as long as I suplement with a protein skimmer. I haven't purchased one yet because I'm debating whether or not to add a sump/fuge to adress some nitrate issues I've been having. More about that in a bit...
  • 2-18" (15W) 8K T8's with canopy hoods that I leave open for gas exchange. No escape artists in the tank, so not a problem yet. I have lighting on a timer for 14hrs/day.
  • 1 Koralia 1050. Do I understand correctly that I should add more flow than this before I consider adding certain types of corals? I turn it off for a few minutes durring feedings.
  • In tank heater set to 78
  • 60 lbs mixed cured LR, 50 lbs sand, half live, half regular.
Two weeks ago, I added a CUC consisting of 1 black urchin, 1 coral banded shrimp (that molted last week), and three mexican turbo snails...lost one of those today actually. I also got a feather duster purely for visual interest. I feed with a mixture of marine flakes, pellets, seaweed, and Dr T's phyto for the filter feeders. Everyone seems happy except for the lethargic hermits and the snails, and I'm sure that's due to nitrates being in the 20-40ppm range. I've been changing water with RO once a week at 20%, but it doesn't seem to bring the nitrates down. I'm not going to think about adding any more invert livestock until I can figure out how to mitigate the nitrates.
The rest of the water chemistry is good...I've been testing for SG, Ammonia, Nitrites every day. Since I added the CUC, ammonia spiked to .25 ppm for a couple days, and Nitrites to .25 for one day, but they've all since returned to barely measurable. I just stared testing for calcium too, and found that it's actually way too high at 600ppm..my questions on that in another thread.
Considering I want to convert to a reef tank in the future, will a HOB protein skimmer do the job, or should I be thinking about a sump/fuge? Lighting will be upgraded to a quad T8 HO setup w/ led lunar running half 10K, half actinics. Anything jump out to anyone as far as my current setup and future expectations go?