Cheryl's 165 Gallon upgrade

[CherylMcKay]

So, the tank has been salty for a week, I am trying to be patience. I had a bacteria bloom the first few days as the rock was just dried out not washed or anything. Now I am at the golden brown algae stage, and still getting the water flow balanced. The skimmer is running and now have a Sedra KSP-20000 running. I have decided that the 75 gallon ( I am holding the fish, coral and rock in) will become my sump. I will put one/two baffles in it, 1to keep the skimmer at the proper depth and the other to keep the live rock from moving all over the bottom...really simple.

My husband keeps reminding me that we want to take this slow and steady. I have added about 20 lbs of live rock and a few snails. I found a really small one a about day 4, maybe a 1/2 cm long crawling on the glass.

I know I need the cycle to finish, and the I can add more of the live rock I have in the 75 gallon. Should I then wait again? I don't want to remove some of the rock as I have 2 engineer gobies that hide behind/under it. I also want to transfer all the fish at once, as I have rad that there will be less aggression that way...

What is a reasonable time frame to aim for, 1 month, 2 ? I figure if I have a end date, I can count down and help control the urge to put everything in this tank so I can admire them all together.

Aquarium home-150G parameters are:
Temperature: 78.7
Salinity: 1.027
Ammonia, NH4: 0.1
Nitrate, NO3: 0.1
Nitrite, NO2: 0
pH: 8.4
Alkalinity, KH: 5.5
Calcium, Ca: 500
Phosphate, PO4: 118 ppb
Magnesium, Mg: 1,600
Ammonia Nitrogen, NH3: 0.1