Newbie: live rock

[istickyfingaz]

Hi Everybody,
i am new to this forum but what a gold mine of reef keeping information.
i am also new to saltwater fish keeping i am setting up a 180 gallon reef tank.
i have some question in regards to live rock and live sand?
i have put 55 pounds of base rock in that i got fairly cheep and i am now getting 180 pounds of live rock from Cains, Australia, The great barrier reef, this stuff costs an arm and a leg.
(I live in Australia)
is this to much rock to cure in my tank any hint's, tip's or links that you can send me to for help in keeping this rock as alive as i possibly can?

Also another question about live sand i am getting 44 pounds of it for my tank and the base of the tank measures 72 X 24 inches is this going to be enough from experience what do you recomend the live sand bed depth should be.

Any help would be very much appreciated.
thank in advance,
Regards,
Simon.

 

[Brian5000]

I'm envious of your pocket book for getting all that! I'm not up for that much work, so I've only done pre-cured rock. You'll probably be doing water changes every day. Pick off the obviously dead stuff when you get it, test ammonia regularly and keep lots of water ready. The lower you keep the ammonia the more stuff will survive the curing.
My little 29 gallon took about 30 pounds of sand to give it a 2 inch sand bed, so I'm thinking 44 pounds won't quite be enough. Whether you get more live sand or mix it with argonite or something is up to you. 2 inches is good enough for much of your sand sifting critters and I think over 4 inches qualifies for a deep sand bed (DSB).
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[istickyfingaz]

thanks for the reply brian,
This tank is 2 years in the making i custom built the hood and cabinet a little over 2 years ago and i have been slowly bying all i need to get it going since then, i finally saved 2grand for all the other stuff i needed like salt and live rock to get it finally up and running (most of it is gone and i havent even started buying fish yet).
i will start mixing water today for the constant water changes but do you think that i should keep the sand in a seperate tank wile curing the rock beacuse i have heard it dosnt need as long to cure and putting it in wth the rock may kill most of it.

 

[ChrisRD]

IME, you'll be OK curing the rock in your system provided you have plenty of circulation and do water changes as needed to keep ammonia under control. A good skimmer is also very helpful in keeping ammonia levels down.

As for the sand - 44 pounds in a tank that size will probably result in about a 1/2" deep bed. IMO that's fine if that's all you want as you've got more than enough live rock for filtration purposes, but more would be fine too if you like the look of a deeper bed. IME it's not necessary to have a very deep bed of sand and personally I would probably not exceed 1" to 2". I guess the only exception to that for me would be if I was specifically setting up and environment for sand-dwelling fish, etc. that needed a deeper bed.

Also, I would prefer to keep the sand out of the main tank (if you're going to cure the rock in there) until the rock is cured. The rock will likely shed a lot of gunk during curing that I would not want in my sandbed. If there's no sand in the tank it's easy to syphon that crud off the bottom during water changes. Once the rock is cured and the crud production slows down, I'd add the sand.

JMO & HTH

 

[Brian5000]

messed this post up, sorry
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[istickyfingaz]

i have another tank i can put the sand in for now thanks for yuor advice, hopefully the rock wont take to long to cure beacuse it will only be out of water for about 3 - 4 hours i was reading a letter written by Dallas Warren about curing live rock and the amount of light that should be used during the curing process i have two three foot blue actinic coralife lights and two 10k halides will running just the two actinics be enough to keep the rock happy darren recommends 1watt/gallon but i have know idea how many watts my fluorescent's are.

 

[ChrisRD]

The idea behind running no or reduce lighting during rock curing is that there will be a lot of nutrients in the water because of all the die-off and you don't want to start massive algae blooms with strong lighting. The other side of the coin, however, is that if you don't run lighting for an extended period, the photosynthetic stuff on the rock may die. The beneficial bacteria and critters like pods, worms, snails, etc. are not photosynthetic, so they're going to make it either way.

IMO which way you go really depends on what you're after. If you're only looking to keep specific corals in your tank that you plan to add later and you want to start with the cleanest rock possible, then it might make sense to cure in the dark and let unwanted photosynthetic stuff (including algaes) die-off. If you're after maximum diversity, then I'd run the lights from day 1.

If you're going with the latter option, in your case (rock out of water for only 3-4 hours) I wouldn't expect much die-off, so I think you'd be OK running plenty of lighting right from the get-go. Personally, I would run the fluorescents on a full schedule (say 12 hours a day) from the start. With the halides I'd probably start at about 2-3 hours a day and work-up from there gradually so as not to shock anything.

BTW, the watts-per-gallon guideline is not very useful IMO and I wouldn't pay much attention to that. If you do a search on the board I think you'll find that's been discussed a few times in the past.

Again, JMO...

 

[istickyfingaz]

i am curing the rock in the tank but i am also cycling the tank itself for the first time, i want to keep the rock as alive as possible so should i be running my skimmer and activated carbon beacuse that would take out all the good stuff to get the tank to cycle properly (i think).

 

[ChrisRD]

Don't worry - there will be plenty of organics decomposing to feed the bacteria and critters. I recommend running the skimmer from day 1. The carbon would be optional IMO, but not a bad idea. IMO there's no such thing as overskimming when you're curing rock.

 

[istickyfingaz]

one more question. when can i start putting in snails, crabs and satrfish and little cleaners and stuff, are they hardyer than fish and i can put them in before the cycle is over. also how many of each should be going in there, i havent seen any articles about how many cleaners you should have yet.

sorry for asking so many questions but i get so many different answers to every question form books and articles,
thanks guys for your patience all your help it is very much appreciated.
Kind regards,
Simon.

 

[ChrisRD]

IMO a lot of inverts are more sensitive than fish and I would definitely not recommend trying to introduce them before the tank is completely cycled and stable. You should have no detectable ammonia/nitrite levels before you begin stocking them (or anything) IMO. Personally, I like to give the tank a bit of time to see what sort of clean-up critters came in on the live rock. Generally you'll get a few species of snails, plenty of pods, worms, etc.

As to how many of each critter to add-in later - it's tough to give exact numbers because it will vary depending on what species select and how much food they'll have in your system (ie. how much detritus and algaes your system is producing). Keep in mind that vendors generally over estimate how many of these animals you'll need (they're in business to sell this stuff :wink: ) and loading up the system with too many clean-up critters will ultimately result in many of them starving from lack of food later. If you do a search on the board you should find a lot of info on this topic as it's been discussed often.

HTH