Hmmm was hoping for a more definate answer as Id like to try keep it alive and am a little new to all this so I have no clue how to care for it. I was planning to go FOWLR for a year or so to help ease my transition to SW as well as give me some time to read up more on reefkeeping.
I have no issues with saying I got it fully cured from the salty critter in Vermillion Ohio.
www.saltycritter.com Im really glad this store is only about 30 min from my house. I bought a few pounds of live sand as well as this particular rock while in the store last weekend. I brought it all home and dumped the 4lb sand on top of the southdown sand I bought then put the rock in. within a few hours I had 4-1" tall feather dusters and 2 teeny tiny starfish coming out of the sand. not to mention all the small snails and such. The sand was steep at 4.50/lb but man was it full of stuff. The rock was also pricey at $7/lb but I needed fully cured and only around 8lb so this was about my only choice. It appears to have several small sponges tons of really tiny feather dusters and other really small filter feeders. I belive the rock is the unavia rock listed on there site but I will ask when Im there tommorow.
I have one question maybe I should start another thread but I'll try here first
I started this tank with
20 Gal water from a really nice established reef tank (speed fill time my ro/di is slow)
15gal RO/DI and instant ocean
~25lbs southdown
~10lb sand from establieshed tanks
~30 lbs really nice clean base rock
~16lb fresh fully cured and enchrusted LR from 3 different sources that were all out of water for about 30 min max
~1lb capuleara sp? algea in fuge
The thing that concerns me is Ive had no ammonia show up on my tests.All my levels seem fine but Ive experienced no cycle.
Everything looks great and there was really no dieoff (white from what I hear) on the LR. I have the 4 feather dusters I mentioned above when open measure about 1" across and there tubes stick out about 1". I have a few very small snails and whatever that is above. Ive had two people tell me I could now start slowly adding my fish but I just want reassurance that I wont see a cycle suddenly start in a week and kill any thing no matter how small or cheap I add now.
Im assuming as I started with all fresh cured rock and sand as well as over half the water was from another tank that what I have now is basically a tank that is ready to go?This has all been in the tank over a week now.
Sorry my post is longer than a week in jail :?
