Im thinking of using about 60lbs of live sand, and about 15lbs of dry rock. Will that be okay? once i put the rock in Ill see if i need more or notand go from there I just figured 15lbs would be a good starting point since my tank isnt that big
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- Thread starter Garrett.turbo
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60 lbs. of sand in a 55 gallon tank will give you approximately a 2" deep bed, so if your cool with that then good to go. As far as rock, no where near enough. The very minimum amount of rock for that tank would be 55lbs. You should really be aiming for closer to 110lbs. Your going to save some money by using dry base rock, most online stores sell it for around 2 bucks/lb. Feel free to send me a pm and I can give you a few sites that sell good dry rock. You want to start with all the rock you need, adding rock later just creates problems. For starters if you have live rock down the road it can trigger a new cycle, plus you will have to re-aquascape the tank. Moving rocks in an established tank is never a good idea, your going to kick up all kinds of detritus and again could trigger a cycle. So I would recommend that you get all you need now and then start the tank.
oh wow sw tanks are alot more sensitive huh? I found a store that is near me that specializes in saltwater, They have dry rock that they sell from their tanks that has some bb on it too and all that good stuff, thats where I plan on buying everything, they said they can special order stuff too which is sweet for me
If it comes out of their tanks it is no longer dry rock, it is then considered live because beneficial bacteria is established on it. Most online stores sell rock for free shipping, I would just make sure you really look at the rock. You want rock to have a lot of pores, solid rock doesn't have as much surface area, which means less beneficial bacteria. SW tanks aren't necessarily "sensitive", but setting the system up right will save you a LOT of headaches down the road. Too many people don't start off on the right foot and end up quitting when they start having losses. Always give yourself the best chance for success.
Speaking from a lot of experience, you definitely want to get everything you need before you get rolling with it. It can be harmful to mess around with adding live rock down the road except in very small amounts and you will have less motivation to buy and add any accessories once you get into buying livestock and such.
Yes, its not like a freshwater tank where you can just take the fish out and save some water and completely change the landscaping. Once you have a FOWLR set up it is very diffucult to change it and even more diffucult to change a reef. Most of the time it has very bad repercussions if you do. ie: tank crashes. And once you crash a tank its very discouraging to start all over again.
You can minimze De-Nitrafying bacterial lose by transporting LR in pre-mixed pre heated 5 gal. buckets if you have an a/c d/c converter for your vehicle and a few small powerheads you can minimize ammonia and nitrite bacteria aswell so long as the rocks are positioned upwards the same as were they came from.
If your rocks are transported in wet paper, water lined plastic bags, and boxes your loses wil increase greatly. Ammonia/Nitrate Bacteria needs an oxygen ricxh enviorment when this changes they die off creating ammonia + phosphate. Denitrafyiers can't live without the other 2.
If your rocks are transported in wet paper, water lined plastic bags, and boxes your loses wil increase greatly. Ammonia/Nitrate Bacteria needs an oxygen ricxh enviorment when this changes they die off creating ammonia + phosphate. Denitrafyiers can't live without the other 2.
I trust this place its very clean and top of the line, Ive never been into a petstore whos tanks and store were so clean. I was planning on buying the rock they have and using it, but we'll see.
