A few questions for my 90

[lotsoftats]

Ok it's been awhile but I am still working on gathering equipment for my 90 sps reef. so far I have:

90rr

2x175wmh +2 x 110w vho atinics all running on icecap ballasts I will be switching out the 175's for 2 x 400w mh's got a good deal on 2 400w blueline electronic ballasts.

tidepool sump. gonna switch it out for a 40 breeder sump fuge.

ETSS evolution 500 skimmer

will be running 3 echo mod maxi jet 1200's and 2 koralia 1's if I need them. had the mj's and picked up the echo mods for $10 a piece brand new.

Anyways on with the questions:

can I use silica sand? some say yes others say no.....???????

how do I cure dead rock? I have around 200lbs that used to be alive sitting in a n empty 100g rubbermade tub I was thinking of getting a pressure washer cleaning it. do I need to cure it in ro water or ro saltwater? how long does it usually take? do I just throw it in a forget about it? I have never cure dead rock before but this is some nice rock and I was playing around with it last night and scaping it dry in the tank and came up with some nice designs. do I need to keep an eye on the parameters and change out the water? I need a step by step guide for this one plz.

does the curing tank need a light? I have one so no big deal just didn't know if it had to have one.

thats all I can think of for know I'm sure I will come up with more as time gets closer to getting water in the tank.

thanks for the help in advance guys/gals

mike

 

[Mikeyjer]

I think it's a over kill for a 90g tank with 2x400w MH's along with 2x110w VHO. I think 2x250w MH's would be good enough along with 2x110w VHO.

When you say dead rock, it is dried up live rock? Or you mean Base Rocks? You can re-cure it in just FW if I remember right with constant water changes to get it cleaned up, then you can place it in saltwater. Curing the rocks does not need the light for anything. I would not use silica sand cause you'll deal with lots of diatoms later....But some do use it.....I rather go with dry aragonite sand on the bottom then live sand over top.

After you get the rocks cured, then you need to seed it with good live rock, I would get a piece that's well established so you can see if there's any bad algae growing on it that you don't want. This is something that I'm going to do as well when I get a bigger tank setup is to dry up ALL my live rocks and re-cure them and place it in the big tank, that way I would not risk into getting any un-wanted algae in the big tank.

 

[gflat65]

400's on a 90 is a lot of light (and heat). I know many who have done this, but I'd go with 250's. I usually reserve 400's for a 30" or deeper tank. When you amke the transition from 175 to 400's, be prepared to acclimate for months (drastically reduced light cycle with shading, imcreasing penetration slowly). That is a huge jump.

On the rock, what I usually do is save the water change water and drop the rocks in with some flow (a MJ1200 or something). If you've got time, you can cook it to try to remove nutrients, but I don't know how long that would take with dry rock. I've only cooked rock once (it's hard to find a pipe that big). What i did was put it in a tub with flowing water and a lid. Doing regular water changes and testing for PO4 (though test kits are notoriously inaccurate, at least maybe you can get a baseline for comparison). The theory is that with no light, the nutrient will be taken up by any living organism in the rock, depleting it until there is none left. Then the organisms die and with a few more water changes, you have clean rock that shouldn't leach much back in any time soon. I did mine for about 2 months. You may not have time for that , though... As Michael stated, seed the clean rocjk with some good live rock to get kick start everything again.

On the sand, you've already found vastly differing opinions. I think several people in the club have at least experiemented with silca sand, though. Maybe someone has some info on that? I use Carib Sea from Dr's Foster and Smith. They charge a flat shipping rate (or did when I got mine, anyway) of $17.99. I ordered 10 or 15 30# bags when we moved and the $17.99 applied to the entire order. That helped make it a little more reasonable.