Sandstorm hurt live rock?

[CloruroDiSodio]

Hi gang,

Setting up my 180gal here. I'll be putting my base (dry) rock in tonight, it's pretty clean (boiled, scrubbed, and bubbling in dechlorinated FW for 24 hrs, followed by RO/DI rinse). Anyway, I was thinking of adding the aragonite sand after the live rock so I could just place the sand in the remaining open areas along the bottom since I didn't want to put any rock on top of sand. My question is will the sandstorm hurt the live rock at all? I was going to turn the pumps off and add the sand with a PVC pipe and funnel thingy that I'm going to make to try and limit the disturbance.

thanks

 

[kraze3]

It wont hurt the rock. Go ahead and add it. Do you have any LR to seed the base rock? The sand wont hurt LR either I was just wondering.

 

[CloruroDiSodio]

Hi kraze3,

Thanks for the reply. Is there anything else I should do to the base rock before I put it in the tank? Right now my temp, pH, and salinity have all been stable for about 4 days now (added salt last Fri). temp = 78F, pH = 8.15, Salinity = 1.022. The base rock is from Marco rocks, very nice product by the way. Their deco rock doesn't have any dead matter on it (I think it's from land), the Fiji rock is harvested so there is a little gunk on it. I boiled the Fiji for about 1 - 2 minutes, scrubbed with nylon brush (hardly anything came off during scrubbing, hot water smelled kind of nasty). Then after the rocks cooled I placed them in dechlorinated FW with a powerhead for about 18 hrs so far.

 

[sdc19982002]

I would get your salinity up to 1.025 or 1.026.

 

[CloruroDiSodio]

Hi sdc19982002, we're going to be running a fish only system so I was going to target a little lower level of salinity.

 

[kraze3]

When I had my FO tank i kept the sg up at 1.o26 just as I do with my reef now. You should be ok with 1.022 however 1.026 is closer to natural sea water. You may find down the road that you want corals, they add a whole new look to the tank.

I have some marco rocks too, great stuff. Your rock should be fine to add so go ahead and do some aquascaping. Take some pics and post too, we love pictures here! As I said above dont forget to add some LR to seed your baserock. In time it will all be LR.

 

[CloruroDiSodio]

Sounds good, thanks a lot! I drilled a couple of holes using a thin carbide bit in some of the rocks in case I need to zip tie anything together. I will grab some live rock as well to seed the base, that's a good idea.

thanks!