Last minute questions before I begin the cycle..

[moorediddy]

So I'm hours away from making another trip to the LFS for rock, salt, water, etc... and I have some last minute questions.

 

1. What's the exact process of adding water? I've heard mix the salt/water first, and I've heard to fill it up with water, and add salt with the powerheads on. I'm planning on doing the latter, water in the tank and mix in salt, is this fine? I don't see why it wouldn't be..

 

2. Order of Operations: If I buy the water, salt, Nature's Ocean LS, and rock all in one trip.... what do I do with the rock from the time that I buy it, and the time that I'm ready to add it to the tank. Should I wait and get the rock after I've mixed in the salt and everything? Or will it be ok for a while before I mix the water and bring the temperature up.

 

3. Live Sand -- The age old question of "which is the best?" ... I'm thinking about a 20lb bag of Nature's Ocean...

 

4. Any other tips/suggestions for the very first time setting up the tank.

 

 

-Moore

[palaegic]

If your'e mixing fresh new saltwater, you will want to let it run for 24 hours or so. You have to give it time to 'balance' itself out, and also give the system time to calibrate the right temp, Sg, pH and so on. Make sure you have a 5 gal bucket (or larger container) to siphon off some of the water when you add sand/rock. I would recommend against bringing the rock home today. If possible, go ahead and pick out your rock - and see if your LFS will just hold it in another tank until your'e ready for it.

[moorediddy]

I've been searching around for a definitive guide to the ACTUAL initial setup of the tank... but every "setup guide" I find is an overview like: "Ok, you'll need a tank, a heater, and a filter."

 

Anyone know of a page, or thread, that has this info? I didn't know to let the salt water cycle for 24 hours... thanks palaegic.

 

-Moore

[Orange Crush]

You're not going to find a definitive guide, because the methods of setting up a tank are nearly as varied as the number of people who keep them. It's probably not necessary to wait 24 hours before adding your rock, but you do want to make sure the SG and temp are right. That being said, it certainly wouldn't hurt, and might help preserve anything living on the rock, to wait a day to add it to the tank.

 

Mixing it in the tank with the powerhead(s) is fine, but like palaegic said, make sure you have someplace to siphon off the overflow.

 

Live sand: Buy cheap aragonite and bum a cup off of a friend or, if you trust them, from an established tank at the lfs. Just make sure they've never used copper medications in this tank. The bagged sand will be fine for bacteria, but doesn't have the "critters" that you really want out of live sand. Given a choice between buying bagged and buying straight dead sand (even without a cup from someone else to seed it) I'd buy dead and let the bacteria from the rock colonize the sand, which it will in time.

[Crakeur]

you can do as oc said and, when the time comes, if you can't find good critter filled live sand (that should not be a problem as people here will mail some out to you) you can go to sites such as inlandaquatics.com, ipsf.com and coralsandbar.com and pick up all the worms, pods, snails, stars etc that are found in most well established sandbeds.

[moorediddy]

Hrm.. that's not a bad idea. I live in the San Diego area, and have seens lots of other SD members on these forums, maybe I can bum some sand from one of them. If I'm using dead sand, I can add that whenever I want then, since I won't have to worry about SG/temp killing anything. Perhaps I'll add the water and dead sand this afternoon, and then the LR tomorrow morning.

 

-Moore