Ranger's Tank Journal

[Betta5]

Well i was on the net and it says LR dosent need light at all and that most collectors cure their LR in the dark! Weird isant it. I always thought it needed light obvestly not.

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah, LR doesnt NEED light in the short term, but some of the organisms on it will require SOME light eventually (most notably coraline algae). If you're gonna start with fish only, you'll do just fine with normal lighting. Its only when you start getting into corals that you need high-powered light.

I also agree that biosand or live sand is a waste of money. Any organisms that live in the sand bed will quickly seed the sand from your LR. Dont spend double on something you dont need

 

[Ranger]

Yeah, LR doesnt NEED light in the short term, but some of the organisms on it will require SOME light eventually (most notably coraline algae). If you're gonna start with fish only, you'll do just fine with normal lighting. Its only when you start getting into corals that you need high-powered light.

I also agree that biosand or live sand is a waste of money. Any organisms that live in the sand bed will quickly seed the sand from your LR. Dont spend double on something you dont need

Thanks for the tips on the live sand guys! I know that stuff is expensive... I don't plan on getting any corals for a while since I'm still new to this. Glad to hear that LR doesn't need special lighting too! Although I'm probably gonna try to get one for Christmas! So is uh.. argonite? going to be fine on the bottom? I believe someone said that the organisms from the liverock would "migrate" to the sand. Thats awesome. As to Redstratplayer1's comment, what is die off? To me that sounds like dead live rock and it doesn't make sense to me that that would help keep it alive. Lol, please enlighten me!

 

[SkiFletch]

When you get your LR from a store or shipped, its not shipped or transported with water, its just done damp. Depending on how long it sits out of the water, some amount of life on the rock will die off. There's PLENTY left so dont get all apprehensive about it, but that dieoff will fuel a mini nutrient cycle, the completion of which will allow you to begin stocking slowly. If you buy from someone locally closing down their tank, then you can usually take the rock with you in water and have less dieoff.

Yes, plain old CaribSea Aragonite sand is what you want. For a 25g tank, 20lbs will be MORE than enough, you might even get away with 10lbs depending on how big your footprint is.

 

[Ranger]

So just to confirm, the argonite(sp) sand will be "seeded" by the liverock wihtout any special lighting. I just have a standard light that came with the tank.

EDIT: Is it best to buy the LR all at once? Or add it over time?

 

[Betta5]

Yes it will seed the sand. I would buy all at once

 

[Ranger]

What is the best way to get the water into the tank w/o it being all cloudy. My friend who claims to "know everything about SW" but clearly doesn't advised to put all of the necessary salt into the tank, and then put the water in gallon by gallon.... This doesn't make sense to me as I was under the impression that the salt/water should be mixed in a bucket or something prior to being put into the tank. Furthermore, does the sand go in before the water? And how deep should the sand be? My tank is... 24Lengthx12Depth(front to back, is that correct terminology?)x20Height

 

[SkiFletch]

Mix your water in buckets/large plastic bins and if you can, bring it up to temp. Test for salinity, temp, and pH. If they're OK then you can go get your LR. Buy the LR, bring it home. Aquascape how you want with the LR on the bare glass bottom. This gives it a good support and guards against "settling" of rocks if laid on the sand directly. Once you're aquascaped, lay your sand bed around the rocks. Cups and fingers are helpful here . Shoot for a 1"-1.5" deep sand bed. Next, place all powerheads, heaters, thermometers, etc.

Then, take your water out of the plastic bins or buckets, and slowly pour it over your rocks and fill the tank. The water will be really cloudy courtesy of your sand for the first 6 or so hours. Turning your powerhead on will clear it up for you. Start your heater and lights and you're ready to go.

 

[Ranger]

Tomorrow is the big day! I'm excited. I got my RO and actually posted a question about it in the SW hardware section (with no responses yet, lol)(hint hint). I'm gonna do just as u said ski, I hope all goes well! I'll try and post a picture for you guys too see if you have any input to my aquascaping (which I assume means how you place your rocks...)

 

[SkiFletch]

There's no hard and fast rules when it comes to aquascaping. Try and have as open a stack as possible. Densely packed rocks tend to trap more detritus than loose ones. If you can create some gaves, all the better since many fish or inverts love hiding in caves. Also creates spaces for good non-photosynthetic sponges to live. Also try and avoid rocks leaning up against the side glass and definitely avoid leaning them up against front glass. Becomes a real PITA to clean the glass when they're positioned like that

 

[Ranger]

Reading through all these threads has given me some cool ideas for my tank. I would like to know if one of them would work... once again my tank is 25 gallons 24x20x12 (LxHxW).
I would like to have:
2 clowns (percula? I'd like a smaller species)
a watchman goby and shrimp combo(is it a pistol shrimp?)
a golden neon goby

Is this possible in my tank? If not can you suggest what might?

 

[SkiFletch]

Sounds reasonable to me

 

[Ranger]

Yay!! E-highfive!

 

[Ranger]

With the two powerheads my protein skimmer and heater. It looks like there is alot of stuff cluttering the back of my tank. Is there any way to get around this and make it looks nicer?

 

[maidenfan]

a sump is best way to hide all your bits n bobs