Hi!

[Ogitrev]

Hi everyone!

Tommy here... I live in Cleona (near Lebanon). I've been out of the hobby for about 10 years (since my divorce, and my ex-wife sold my reef before I could get it moved). Anyway, I decided to start up again. I'm setting up a 120 with a 55 gallon sump in the basement. I'm taking this build slowly and making sure I do things right. You can check progress and some photos on my blog (www.tommysreef.com).

Anyway, I'm soon going to start cycling some rock. I have 30 pounds of dried up Fiji rock from my old tank. The ex forgot that I had it curing in the basement when she sold my reef so I saved it. But it's been dry for 10 years. I'm going to take that and some dry rock from marcorocks and start it cycling soon. But I would like to seed it with good quality live rock. I went to That Fish Place, but they didn't seem to have "good" live rock.

So... a couple questions...

1) Has anyone locally bought LR from TFP? How is the life on their rock? I would like to make sure I get all the beneficial stuff like copepods.

2) Is anyone here willing to sell me a few pounds of good LR for seeding and maybe a cup of sand?

Thanks!
::Tommy

 

[ganjero]

Welcome back.
Since you are taking it slow, I would first "cook" the rock to make sure you get rid of all the nasty stuff. You don't want to have a nice reef going and then your rock starts leaching phosphates.
I don’t believe in seeding from other live rock, there are high chances you get a pest or any other unwanted stuff. Nothing like starting a tank with “cooked” rock and having the peace of mind that you don’t have any unwanted life. You will make that rock “live” in no time and have all the necessary bacteria after the cycle is over.
If you want any kind of pods (copepods, amphipods, etc) you can just buy them and seed your tank, there are many online stores that sell them.

Good Luck