Preparing to purchase "The Package"

[jbarone]

Hello Everybody, Hello Richard,
We've read every thread in this forum and many wonderful testimonials at other sites. We’re planning to purchase live rock and sand from TBS in the next month
to start a reef tank for our son. My wife and I just returned from our honeymoon in Bora Bora. We did plenty of diving and saw things we never thought existed. Our son unfortunately will never be able to experience such a site. He has very severe Cerebral Palsey. His primary sense is his site, so we though we could bring a piece of the ocean to him. We’ve kept freshwater fish for many years so now we’d like to convert our 55 gallon tank to saltwater.

We have a few questions. We’d like to hear about the process, those of you who have TBS rock, went through from time you brought it home to the time it went in to the tank. We have read every word on the TBS site, and we thought it would help to hear some actual experiences. We understand the cycling procedures thoroughly. We’re more interested in the cleaning of the rock, tools used if any, if tubs have been used to transfer the rock while in their bags, into tubs of salt water in order to remove critters and die off while submerged, to prevent further die off and before moving it to the tank and so on.

Currently we have a 55g tank. 48X13X20, Two 400gph powerheads, and a 300 watt heater to reuse.

We’re considering the 48” Current USA Outer Orbit HQI lights:

http://www.marineandreef.com/shoppro/metal_OuterOrbit.htm

and a Coralife 220 Super Skimmer:

http://www.marineandreef.com/shoppro/protein_skimmers_coralife.htm

There are so many products and so many opinions; we’d like to hear from some TBS owners if this equipment will work well for us, and welcome any suggestions. We'd like to keep SPS and LPS corals, a few fish, and maybe a clam or two. We saw the most beautiful clams in Bora Bora. I’m sure we’d like to have one. We have a budget of $1500 to work with.

Thanks for your help and we look forward to becoming a part of the TBS family.

Jamie and Jennifer

 

[liverock]

lots of info here...do a search for TBS

lots of info here...do a search for TBS

Hey Yall

start reading here!!

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=842093

Richard TBS:rollface:

 

[HowardW]

<<< Currently we have a 55g tank. 48X13X20, Two 400gph powerheads, and a 300 watt heater to reuse.

We’re considering the 48” Current USA Outer Orbit HQI lights:

http://www.marineandreef.com/shoppr..._OuterOrbit.htm

and a Coralife 220 Super Skimmer:

http://www.marineandreef.com/shoppr...rs_coralife.htm

There are so many products and so many opinions; we’d like to hear from some TBS owners if this equipment will work well for us, and welcome any suggestions. We'd like to keep SPS and LPS corals, a few fish, and maybe a clam or two. >>>



In my opinion the metal halide lights are overkill and a bit much for TBS rock as much of the life found on them doesn't require or like intense lighting and will bleach from too much light. It's been my experience that power compacts are more than enough in most cases and even T5's work well unless you run too many of them or use individual reflectors. If you do use halides I would run them only several hours per day and the balance of the day run less lighting.

That skimmer will work well and is a good choice in my opinion.

As far as having a tank with TBS rock and clams and other high light requiring stuff like SPS corals, it's not the best idea in my opinion as clams and SPS corals require very high quality water and intense lighting which is nearly the exact opposite of what the TBS rocks do best in. I do however keep softies and a couple LPS corals in one of my TBS tanks running PC lighting. It's been my experience that TBS rocks do best and flourish in relatively high nutrient water and all the filter feeders will require a steady source of live phyto or other suitable food to keep them alive.

More later....

 

[jbarone]

Thanks Howard. We appreciate you help. We have a new RO/DI unit and storage for plenty of water to perform regular water changes. Will this along with the skimmer provide quality water to maintain SPS corals and clams? Also, if TBS rock will not thrive under these lighting conditions can you suggest another type that will?

Thanks,
J & J

 

[HowardW]

Well I am not an expert on SPS corals or clams however they will require pristine water parameters along with lots of light and water movement up to 30-40X flow. While TBS rock is generally a very hearty and adaptable rock it generally does best with not so intense lighting and somewhat "dirty" water. Also, if this is a brand new tank setup, I think most people would not recommend adding either clams nor SPS until the tank gets established for at least a few months and water params are very good. You might also want to start out with Deresa clams if you don't have a lot of experience keeping clams.

I'm not saying it's impossible to keep TBS rock and SPS corals together in the same tank, as I'm sure there are people somewhere out there that do and with great success, I was just saying they do come from different types of environments and like somewhat different water conditions. Just be sure to keep the SPS corals in the top 1/2 of the tank and under the halides, and provide some not so bright areas for some of the corals on the TBS rock.

 

[Jocko]

Are you looking to recreate a carribean/gulf biotope or do you just want nice rocks and pretty corals?

 

[jbarone]

Thanks Howard. I appreciate your help. We want to take this slow and wait for our tank to become well established before adding any corals or a clam. I would consider adding a reef friendly fish or two before corals, only as long as the tank is stable and the water is testing good.

Jocko,
Yes we're looking to keep a reef tank with nice rocks and corals.

 

[Poisson Voyageur]

Hi, I had bought a package from them years ago, it was great!
First of all, it came in water. Everything alive on it, even sponges. What I did was taking each rock from the boxes into the tank with minimal contact with the air mainly for sponges survival. No cleaning, nothing, I wanted to keep as much life as possible. On the bottom of the boxes, we found a few critters, stars, porcelain crabs, mithrax crabs, baby mantis. We put the mantis in another tank.
We had a small cycle for a few days. Overall, very happy with the package, absolutely no curing, those are ultra fresh, full of life. It would have hurt me to clean them prior to introducing them to my tank, would have lost so much!
That was back 7 years ago but I don't think their quality has changed.
What I loved the most was the porcelain crabs(filter feeders) which popped up everywhere, cool critters. Eventually all colourful sponges disappear after a few months due to the fact that our systems don't have the means to feed them sufficiently. What I hated was trying to catch those hairy killer crabs whitish in color, those guys zere so so smart at avoiding all traps. I also had quite a few baby mantis shrimp which were really cool looking at swimming across the tank, going from one rock to another, such cool creatures. I think they fed on the food I ws putting in and on a few crabs, never touched the fishes but I pulled them out anyway on the advixce of reef central members. They went to a 20 gallon tank I had, the kind of tank that takes everything a reef tank does not want, big hermit, small lobster, hairy crabs, small mantis...
MY 2 cents advise, no cleaning at all, as little contact with the air as possible and watch your tank become alive after a few days, keep on discovering new creatures after months.
PS: my tank was a 100gallons
Good luck but get those hairy crabs out while you can, they are a pain to catch and become very big, very strong...