Need a bit more help

Need a bit more help

  • Will work well

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Will work sort of well

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Will not work

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  • This guy is stuipd

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • This guy is so stupid I won't even answer

    Votes: 1 100.0%

  • Total voters
    1

labatt

New member
ok, the salt question was a joke lol. heres my newest plan (it seems to change daily). 1. purchase a few bags of live sand from my lfs and use it to seed whatever i get for the rest of the sand. 2. purhcase a 60lb box of hawian base rock from http://www.hirocks.com/ . 3. purchase as much fully cured lr from my lfs as i can afford(im running out of money very quickly) should be about 20-30lbs for now. what order should i put it all together? I was thinking install base rock, then lr then sand. as far as the sand goes should i mix it up, or go like %50ls/100%other/50%ls, or some other way. i was thinking of using the south down play sand from home depot, ive read many things on this site saying that it is fine. then once the sand storm has cleared fire up the sump and what not and wait, wait, wait. my thinking is that it may not cycle as fast, but since i am running out of money anyhow, i wont be able to afford any livestock for a while anyhow. i also believe that this may give the base rock time to start growing some bacteria and since i will be required to stock my tank very slowly, as far as i can tell from what ive read i should be ok.(man $2000 goes fast when building a reef system, lol). If you could please give me your comments/comcerns/ideas I would really appreciate it.
P.S. I would also like for some people to basically tell me exactly what to to with what I have here, like i said earlier I am running out of money very quickly and the things that i posted are about all i can afford. I am almost scared of this whole thing and starting to get a bit confused with everyone telling me "you could do this" and so on, I really appreciate it but what I think I need right now is a few people w/experience to just look at what I have and say "do it this way" or if my take on the whole situation is retarded "It won't work, you have to have....". I think I have a decent handel on the equipment side of it, I have all of the common stuff i.e. skimmer, sump, lighting and so on. I just need some serious guidance on building the reef part.
Thank you very much in advance, the people at this site have been invaluable to me.
 
The live sand that most LFS sell is not worth much, just wet sand. Let your live rock seed your tank. You could also get some sand from a fellow reefer if you wanted.

I would put the sand (dry) in first, followed by the live rock mixed with base.
 
I second that. I used very live rock (from another reefer's brokedown tank) and raw aragonite sand, raw saltwater, and on those rocks I had the following survive:
Spionid worms, Pileolaria featherdusters, Phoronid featherdusters, other featherdusters, Chrimia biceps worm, bristleworms, strombus grazer snails, Zebra nerite snail, sponge pink, yellow, isopods, copepods, aiptasia, discosoma neglecta, various discosoma, coralline, valonia, green hair, red macro, pumping xenia, and a fragment of bubble coral. They're still with me, through the cycle and everything (which was very mild)---except the bubble which blew loose and got lost in a water change.

Put some eggcrate on your bottom before anything to protect your bottom glass against shifting rock.

Start your cycle by feeding one imaginary fish flake food once a day.

You can run your skimmer, your lights, stablize your temperature, do all sorts of futzy things that are better done before you have critters. Start testing. Learn how to do that. If you can get one corallined rock, about fist-sized, from an established tank you will have a start on that growth.
 
I am somewhat familiar with water testing, I have had a FO sw tank for about 2 years now and have been mostly successful with it. Basically what I am after here is strong advice on my substrate/rock selection on a budget that is getting tighter by what seems to be the minute, and instruction on the best installation procedure and order. Some advice on how long the coraline will take to spread and bacteria to grow in/on the base rock would be very helpful as well. Thanks again for all the help.
 
Don't spend your cash on sand. The rock has to be live: the sand will catch up in a hurry---like within 4 weeks, maybe 2.
1. Eggcrate
2. Sand 4 inches deep.
3. add salt ro/di water
4. add live rock. Try to arrange a lacework of rock, so as not to have dead spots. Let the water blow through your structure.
5. proceed with cycling.
6. when 0,0,0 readings on nitrite/trate/ammonia add cleaning crew: by then algae should be going. Wait for next 0,0,0 reading before adding fish, and add them one at a time except for pairs of schools.
 
excellent, thats exactly the kind of answer i was looking for. Just one more question though. All LR or can i go with the LR/base mix? For base I was going to use some of the rock from here
http://www.hirocks.com/Our_Products.html
Please tell me if it would be acceptable, and if yes please suggest a ratio. I was thinking like 60/40 base rock/lr.
Tahnk you very much for your help.
 
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