Converting to Reef

[mwith]

Howdy everyone, new to the forums, love this site. Such a great place for a lot of super information. I have a 72 gal bowfront Saltwater Tank with Fish only right now. I have had it for a few years, and I think I am ready to take the plunge and convert to a reef tank. Here's what I have:

Wet/Dry Filter
Skimmer
Orbitz Compact Lights
1 Yellow Tang, 2 Clowns, 1 Foxface, 1 Royal Grama, and 1 Coral Beauty in tank now.

I am tired of bleaching dead coral to make things look pretty again. A few questions that I can think of:

Currently have crushed coral on the bottom of the tank. Do I need to replace with live sand?
Can I leave my fish in the tank and just go out and add in the live rock needed to start my reef tank, or is this a bad move?
Do I need to do a complete water replacement before adding live rock?

Just a few things that I have thought of so far. If anyone has any answers or places I could look for some of these conversion questions, I would greatly appreciate the information.

I really want to get this right and do it right the first time.

Thanks again for your help, love the posts that I have read so far.

Mark

[kzickovich]

I would get rid of the wet dry and get a good skimmer first then replace CC with LS crabs and snails have a hard time with CC. Buy at least 120 # of live rock and cure it in a garbage can or something like that for a few weeks. After it's cured put it in. Welcome to the site! Then think of getting a new light depending on what you want to keep.

[tanker]

PS--With a reef you do not need any sand. So you can go bare-bottom or just enough to cover bottom--your choise.

[corals123]

you also need to decide if you want to do hard or soft corals. they each have different needs so read a little while your live rock is getting ready or buy cured live rock from the store( be careful CURED live rock is hard to find sometimes at Local Fish Stores