Free minute here at work, the toadstool looked fully recovered this morning but the jury is still out on the GSP (it was still dark when I left for work so I'll see this afternoon)! Now to answer some of the questions...
As far as actually recording a cycle, no I didn't. I test salinity, and check ph every night, but didn't bother with my Ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, etc. until 3 weeks had gone by. My thinking behind this was I change 15-20 percent of the water every week, the tank will cycle when it cycles and checking every day will just make me impatient. (I'm a big believer in just letting a tank cycle without panicking every time I see a spike)
There was very little die off from the rock I bought which I took as a good sign that it was decently cured. The clowns were actually acclimitising for about an hour and a half as I fiddled around with the new powerhead.
I did take them home in a 6 pack cooler, however it was an extremely hot day out, traffic was bad and it took me twice as long as usual to get home and I'm sure they got a little toasty despite the cooler.
Losing the fish was frustrating because I've never lost anything that quickly before (maybe I've just been lucky) and it was a shock to see the corals looking like they were on the edge of collapse as well. The odd time something dies in my FW tank it doesn't seem to have nearly the same impact.
I did a 50% water change late last night with RO water, the toadstool looks like it's coming around and hopefully the GSP will as well. I'm not going to worry about bothering anybody about the fish because I don't really think the store had anything to do with it and although I may be short tempered and tend to open my mouth wide enough to fit both feet in, I am an honest guy and big enough to admit when I was out of line.
Albert, if that was you that helped me out on either monday or wednesday I appreciate the time you took and I owe you an apology. I was going to PM you but i figured if I'm apologizing for something I said in public, I should make the apology public as well.
What I really want to do right now is figure out where I went wrong, and avoid making the same mistake again. Thanks again for all the replies and keep 'em coming
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