3 foot Saltwater set-up (2 weeks old)

So I have just started a 3 foot saltwater set-up at home. Basically I bought the cabinet, light and protein skimmer along with about 15-20kg of live rock from eBay (as one + I bought a new Dalbard 3 foot tank as the previous one was very very scratched i.e. the one that came with the cabinet from eBay). I bought a 2 foot mini-reef (second hand) - got the bulk head and the overflow/inlet pipe for the mini-reef cut out by a aquarium store. I have bought some extra live rock and already added two fish after 1 week .... however, the live rock was well cured and, I dosed the tank with culture everyday.

Set-up

* Aqua-medic 150 watt halogen (brilliant!)

* standard 3 foot Dalbard tank - really good quality tank. A great feature is in the lids as they are cut smaller than the tank width and, you add a plastic sleeve which covers the gap and, can be shifted in order for the cables to go through i.e. no more trying to cut/break the glass to fit tubes, wires in the tank etc etc. The glass is a standard 6mm....

* Made the hood (not completed yet) with the help of the old man whose is pretty good with these sorts of things

* Pine wooden cabinet

* Plastic bulkhead which you can buy from bunnings for around $15.00

* Plan PVC pipping to fit into bulk head

* 2 foot mini-reef with a 4 spinning arm filled with 10 kg of cured live rock + pumice that you find on the beach (works just like matrix except it floats) + filter wool + fish filter foam with is 50mm thick that I bought from Clark rubber

* Aqua-medic protein skimmer

* 1500L p/h internal power head

* 2000L p/h return pump

* 3mm coral sand

Turtle hair grass

I added a few pieces of live rock which are covered in turtle hair grass and, i know many people aren't keen on using this however, in my experience both this and green algae play a big role in keeping the nitrate's super low. However, the down side to this is that you will have to continually trim it - upside however is that you may (i say may....) have to change your water less often - we will see how it goes and if it survives in my new tank.

I have been using sera and cycle bacterial cultures, prime for declorinating the water and Seachem salt to make the salt water (haven't added any trace supps etc yet).

After 1 week I have already added 1 x damsel and 1 x yellow chromis - I wouldn't recommend this however, i have loads of cycled live rock so I wanted to get the ammonium cycle going.

Water chem after 1 week:

Ammonium : 0 - 0.01ppm (the fish were darting around a little at first, so I think bit of ammonium is present - did a 25% water change right after and, that settled them

Nitrite : 0 - 5ppm

Nitrate : 40ppm ( seems high but, I seen fish survive in 100ppm nitrates... still not good for them)

Salinity : 1.021 - 1.022

Temperature: 25 - 27 degrees (will get a chiller shortly to keep around 24 degrees)

pH : 8.4