New Biocube 14 Gallon

[plantedbully]

I purchased a biocube 14 gallon unit about one month ago, but I decided to set it up just a few days ago. I've had alot of people telling me different things so I've decided to set this up in hope that someone will enlighten me with new and helpful info.
First: I had a friend that has had this model going for about a year now help me mix the water for the tank. We used RO water, buffer, and instant ocean mix. The substrate we used was CaribSea live sand...about 15 pounds. I purchased about 8 pounds of live rock to get going.
This is where it gets confusing. The guy at the store told me that it was fully cured rock and didn't need to cycle and that I could add a chromis to the tank to help cycle the tank. My friend told me to do the cocktail method of cycling a tank. I've been doing the cocktail method but yet to see any algae growing as I was told I would see and it has been about a week now. I don't want to add a cleanup crew if there isn't any algae or waste.
When we mixed the water the hydrometer read 1.023, but now reads 1.020...why the drop? Also is it true I don't have to cycle the tank like the lfs guy told me? I also found out that the heater i placed in the tank is no good and was warming the tank to 84 degrees....way to hot so i took it out and need to get another one.

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[plantedbully]

ohhh yeah. how soon can i start adding purple up to the tank?

 

[chrissaysyes]

You could add purple up but you wont really need to...for one coralline wont grow without the presence of coralline spores. What you need to do is get your water situated and stable first. Make sure the salinity and temp are right, then worry about pH, nitrates and nitrites. When ammonia, nitrites, nitrates are at zero, start adding live stock. You could take the bumpy road and go ahead with the chromis but they may die. Just take it slow, you have plenty of time. To boost coralline you're going to need some mature live rock with lots of coralline on it. Once your water parameters are stable, you can try giving it a good scrub under the water with a utensil strong enough to remove the coralline from the rock, this will help spread it around.