Hello From Southern England

wow lots of freebies on that rock; worms, sponges, zoas, mushrooms, and even a watch by the looks of it!

hahahaha Love that! Wonder if I can get a grandfather clock with my LR? Would love one of those!

Seriously, the tank is coming along nicely! Reading this with lots of interest as I am also doing little by little!
 
wow lots of freebies on that rock; worms, sponges, zoas, mushrooms, and even a watch by the looks of it!

hahahaha Love that! Wonder if I can get a grandfather clock with my LR? Would love one of those!

Seriously, the tank is coming along nicely! Reading this with lots of interest as I am also doing little by little!

Hi - Thanks. Have just read through your post, but I'm only just starting out really, so not 100% on too many of those! Live Sand, my LFS think it's a joke, as it's flown in here, and it would have frozen on the plane - so the bacteria would have mostly died. Fair point - I still got 4 bags of the stuff, but also got lots of the LR, as you've seen. Watch was the closest thing I could think of for size comparison. B-) Still need to get the rock onto the glass, but my stupid arms are too short to get a good grip all the way to the bottom, and moving that sand around is a nightmare. Plus trying to see through the side with the refraction makes it so difficult to judge distances and positions. Even harder when there are 2 of you trying to do it. Good relationship tester that one! :S
 
wow lots of freebies on that rock; worms, sponges, zoas, mushrooms, and even a watch by the looks of it!

hahahaha Love that! Wonder if I can get a grandfather clock with my LR? Would love one of those!

Seriously, the tank is coming along nicely! Reading this with lots of interest as I am also doing little by little!

Still need to get the rock onto the glass, but my stupid arms are too short to get a good grip all the way to the bottom, and moving that sand around is a nightmare. Plus trying to see through the side with the refraction makes it so difficult to judge distances and positions. Even harder when there are 2 of you trying to do it. Good relationship tester that one! :S

hehe... get a snorkel mask :D
 
wow lots of freebies on that rock; worms, sponges, zoas, mushrooms, and even a watch by the looks of it!

:rolleyes: Closest thing I could find for size, hoping for diamonds next time, or maybe a dwarf lion...

If you are upto 40Kg of LR I would not add anymore scape what you have best to have lots of swimming room for all them new fish :good:

I had 45Kg in my 100 Gallon and have since removed at least 5Kg when you buy corals they will generally be on LR anyway :hey:

Using the Berlin method its better to have a good flow than lots of LR if you add 80Kg of rock to the tank flow will be impeded so will be less effective than 30Kg with good flow you can always add some LR to the sump have 8Kg in mine atm that needs moving on :)

I'll get what I have piled up and see how it looks - I made a mess of it list night - hope I've not scared the hell out of the hitch hikers too much. George - our larger feather duster wormie is not amused with being moved about!
 
Hurrah - got my red LED flashlight in the post today, can't wait for the end of the day. Now it'll drag along.
Got the right side tower built. Left side started, looks a lot better, still got a lot of rock not assigned to anywhere yet, so maybe that will do? Will post progress when I get a little further.
 
From looking at the photos I would say that's probably enough rock. You got some really good quality stuff. loads of zoa's a few mushrooms and a couple of other bits and bobs on there. Much, much higher quality then the stuff I can get in my LFS's.

I agree with your LFS on livesand, complete rip off and I have know some people that have used it and then had massive ammonia and phosphate spikes because of it (if you using it already and you are in the cycle it don't matter though. I'm impressed with your LFS for telling you this though. A lot of them will talk it up and tell you how good it is because they have a much better profit margin on it over normal sand.

When scaping your rock think about water flow. You want the rock to be stable but you also want as much space around each bit of rock as well to get the most water flow around it as you can.

Have fun with the torch and be prepared to get a few late nights and you stay up till 3 in the morning looking at rock in the dark :) If you have any food pellets drop one or two in before the lights go off and then check out what comes out to eat them.
 
From looking at the photos I would say that's probably enough rock. You got some really good quality stuff. loads of zoa's a few mushrooms and a couple of other bits and bobs on there. Much, much higher quality then the stuff I can get in my LFS's.

I agree with your LFS on live sand, complete rip off and I have know some people that have used it and then had massive ammonia and phosphate spikes because of it (if you using it already and you are in the cycle it don't matter though. I'm impressed with your LFS for telling you this though. A lot of them will talk it up and tell you how good it is because they have a much better profit margin on it over normal sand.

When scaping your rock think about water flow. You want the rock to be stable but you also want as much space around each bit of rock as well to get the most water flow around it as you can.

Have fun with the torch and be prepared to get a few late nights and you stay up till 3 in the morning looking at rock in the dark :) If you have any food pellets drop one or two in before the lights go off and then check out what comes out to eat them.

Hi - thanks. It was a closer LFS that did 'talk up' the live sand thing, but they sure are more on the sales side than the other LFS which is slightly further away. I won't be getting may fish from the closer lot, even though it looks a lot newer inside, brighter etc, the fish just don't see to be as happy looking - maybe my perception. Rock I think is currently in a positive position for max circulation.

I've got no foods yet - as we've not really decided what we want by way of fish. Would a shrimp from the fresh fish section in local shop do? Just a small one. Actually. I could do a time lapse thing with webcam... hmm...
 
Yeah as you don't have any livestock in there a small bit of shrimp would be ok (remove it in the morning if it is still there). Time lapse on a webcam could be pretty cool :)
 
Yeah as you don't have any livestock in there a small bit of shrimp would be ok (remove it in the morning if it is still there). Time lapse on a webcam could be pretty cool :)

Cool - might try and remember to get over to waitrose before it closes the mongery...

I've just read your update on the other post, that's great - got a lot from that. Shelly's one. Good job!
 
Yeah as you don't have any livestock in there a small bit of shrimp would be ok (remove it in the morning if it is still there). Time lapse on a webcam could be pretty cool :)

Cool - might try and remember to get over to waitrose before it closes the mongery...

I've just read your update on the other post, that's great - got a lot from that. Shelly's one. Good job!

Thanks, I was going to put a link to it for you but then when I went back to edit it I saw you was reading it so didn't bother :) Glad it was useful. I have been planning for a long time to write a complete "setup" guide for marine tanks so if you found it useful I might have to get off my #14### and finally get round to doing it. :)
 
WOW!
Didn't have anything food wise to entice the wildlife out of the rocks last night, but it didn't really matter. Within about 10 mins, there was LOTS of life. Mostly on that little patch we're calling The Zoa Garden.

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It came alive, there was even what I think is a bristle star, about 15mm wide, and a crab about the same size. He was funny, jumping from a ledge to the middle of said garden and then up the tower to eat George - our feather duster worm. George was having none of it.

(Must remember to name the crab later)

Also did my first proper clean of the back of the tank just now, see 2nd image below. It was getting bad the patch on the left that I couldn't quite reach. Wow, that stuff smells pretty ocean like! Bleurgh. But guessing that'll feed most of the life in there?

Can't wait for tonights instalment. Will try and remember to get something from the shop later. Steak? Maybe not.

Some photos:

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Managed to fish out the 2 little bits of tiger prawn yesterday morning, after I went to the LFS to get some long nose pincer things, and a long handled glass cleaner. Seems to have nicely kicked off a brown algae bloom? Might be coincidence, but where the meat was rolling around is where it's worst. Must test the water when I get in - it looks like the tank is gathering life nice and fast now. Tried a little bit of tuna last night too, they were not interested - they being the un-seen creatures of the rock. Anticipation for the fish is a _itch!
 
Managed to fish out the 2 little bits of tiger prawn yesterday morning, after I went to the LFS to get some long nose pincer things, and a long handled glass cleaner. Seems to have nicely kicked off a brown algae bloom? Might be coincidence, but where the meat was rolling around is where it's worst. Must test the water when I get in - it looks like the tank is gathering life nice and fast now. Tried a little bit of tuna last night too, they were not interested - they being the un-seen creatures of the rock. Anticipation for the fish is a _itch!

Yeah if you leave food in there too long it will rot down and give off ammonia and phosphate. Its ok while you are cycling anyway but wouldn't recommend once you have finished and start adding fish and stuff.

I have just moved a bunch of my LR to a new tank and found all sorts of things that I never knew where there :) thats one of the things thats great about marines, you never know what your are going to get :)
 
Brown stuff = diatoms, test your water and lets see where you are, diatoms usually come near the end of your cycle in a new tank

Seffie x
 
Morning all.
Last nights tests were:

Temp: 27°c
Ph: 8.0
Sg: 1.0235 (seems to have dropped slightly, without any evaporation)
Ammonia: 0.0
NitrIte: <0.3
NitrAte: 5.0 (May have read it wrong, could be 50 - will check again today).

diatoms :good: are spreading, could nearly be time to worry about getting spare heater, powerhead, LARGE mixing bucket ready for a change?
 

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