Finally going salt and I need Help

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I actually don't recommend live rock, due to the unknowns with it. It's ridiculously expensive and can have potentially harmful hitchhikers. I use all dry rock, takes longer to cycle, but you have more control.

www.reefrocks.net

You can get dry porous rock for around $1.5/pound. The guy supposedly used to be a supplier for macrorocks and BRS, who knows. I just know you can't beat his stuff for the money.
 
Check out local landscaping companies also. Your looking for lime based rock if you go that route (limestone). Wash it real good too.
 
Wow, first time I heard this, however how long does it take for dry rock to become live rock with no live rock present? And also is it like cycling a freshwater tank? Also what about if I brought 50 lbs of live rock and the rest dry?


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It would take awhile. But that is the cheapest route. Time = money.
hehehehe
:D
 
Wow the price is really doable for dry rock. What should be my ratio and would I have to wait longer then a month? I plan on buying my reef octopus skimmer this weekend and the tank is completely empty so I'm ready to go. As far as live sand or aragonite sand. What do you guys prefer? And how lbs would I need for my 125 gal?


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Ok, to answer your questions, the rock becomes live through the course of the cycle. The beneficial bacteria grows on it and with time it will color up just like live rock you can purchase. So it becomes "live" fairly quick, it just takes awhile to get the color you want. You want dry aragonite sand, and that same site I sent you has good stuff at a great price. There is no such thing as "live sand". The stuff they sell in stores claiming to be live sand is bogus, the sand only becomes live by going through a cycle and having beneficial bacteria grow on it. That being said, used sand from an established tank is live, but you don't want it. Used live sand is so full of detritus it does more harm than good. Start all fresh, dry aragonite sand and base rock. You will save a ton, and you can be sure that there are no surprises awaiting you. As far as how much, how deep of a sand bed do you want? For a 2in. bed you would need around 80-100lbs. to give you an idea.
 
Purevil21 said:
Ok, to answer your questions, the rock becomes live through the course of the cycle. The beneficial bacteria grows on it and with time it will color up just like live rock you can purchase. So it becomes "live" fairly quick, it just takes awhile to get the color you want. You want dry aragonite sand, and that same site I sent you has good stuff at a great price. There is no such thing as "live sand". The stuff they sell in stores claiming to be live sand is bogus, the sand only becomes live by going through a cycle and having beneficial bacteria grow on it. That being said, used sand from an established tank is live, but you don't want it. Used live sand is so full of detritus it does more harm than good. Start all fresh, dry aragonite sand and base rock. You will save a ton, and you can be sure that there are no surprises awaiting you. As far as how much, how deep of a sand bed do you want? For a 2in. bed you would need around 80-100lbs. to give you an idea.
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Extremely good info, i want a light sand bed so i will just order 80 pounds from that site and get 100lbs of dry base rock for starters, now i know how to read salinity within the water however during cycling i have questions.
1. I have brand new 3 aquaclear 110's so what media should i put in all three, I have to aquaclear 901 powerheads that i will use, and I will get a reef octupus skimmer. Do I run the skimmer during cycle or not?
do I run the aquaclears too during cycle or just the Powerheads?
 
caribemob said:
Extremely good info, i want a light sand bed so i will just order 80 pounds from that site and get 100lbs of dry base rock for starters, now i know how to read salinity within the water however during cycling i have questions.
1. I have brand new 3 aquaclear 110's so what media should i put in all three, I have to aquaclear 901 powerheads that i will use, and I will get a reef octupus skimmer. Do I run the skimmer during cycle or not?
do I run the aquaclears too during cycle or just the Powerheads?
Click to expand...

Ok, I will try to answer your questions as best as I can. First, for salinity, use a refractometer instead of a hydrometer. The hydrometers are usually off by quite a bit. Your salinity is going to depend on what you want to do, for fish anywhere between 1.024-1.026 is going to be just fine, but if you ever decide go full reef you should keep the salinity as close to 1.026 as possible. Some people keep their reef at slightly higher salinity than that, but I don't see the difference.

Second, as far as your aquaclears, is this all your going to use for filtration? Ideally for a sw tank you want to use a sump/refuge to allow maximum biological filtration vs. using mechanical filtration from canisters and HOB setups. If you are going to use only HOB/canisters for filtration than use rock rubble as the media to give yourself more bio-filtration.

Third, the powerheads aren't going to do anything to affect the cycle one way or the other. The only reason to run them would be to get an idea of where your high and low flow areas are and tweak as you see fit, but being that your doing an aggressive FOWLR the powerheads aren't really all that important. You may consider not using them at all.

Fourth, you can run the skimmer if you like, but your not going to get much in the collection cup. But running it will at least let it start breaking in.

If you have any more questions feel free to ask!
 
They are important, but not a must. I have run several FOWLR tanks that had no powerheads at all with no issues, through regular maintenance the tanks stayed clean. The main point I was making is running them during the cycle makes no difference at all unless you want to see where you have high and low flow.
 
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