Live Rock and Live Sand

[Amack]

Been a few years sense ive had a SW setup so i need a little refresher course. Ive got a 55g i want to use for my new tank. My plan as of now is to buy 20lbs of live sand from saltwaterfish.com and use 20lbs of pool filter sand or the pre packaged"live sand" from my LFS... then i was going to get some regular base rock and buy 20-25lbs of live rock also from saltwaterfish.com my skimmer of choice is the coralife super skimmer 65 sense i have no desire for corals at the present moment i was gunna stick with my typical dual bulb strip light, with one actinic and one and one 10k or a pair of 50/50s. So if this "plan" is not very stable and/or needs some work please help.

[bertoni]

[welcome]

The pre-packaged live sand is basically worthless, in my opinion. It might have some bacteria, but that's not worth all that much. I'd probably go for 50-60 lbs of total rock, which seems to be a reasonable guess as to what's needed. 25 lbs of live and 25 of base is fine, in my opinion. Less is fine if the load is adjusted downward.

[bertoni]

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1031074

Oops, meant to post that pointer.

[Amack]

if i used 20lbs of regular sand and 20lbs livesand it will seed the rest of it,correct? what about the skimmer choice, good or bad? if i wanted to upgrade to metal halide(mainly cause i like the look) what wattage shouldl i shoot for

[loosecannon]

That skimmer is no go . the other stuff is fine.

[bertoni]

There's a pointer to information on substrate choices in the thread I liked. Some live sand, if of good quality, would seed the rest. The good quality part is hard to find and expensive.

[Amack]

where do you recomend buying live sand/rock from that is of good quality and good pricing? if that skimmer is no good what do you recomend.

[dsn112]

Aqua C Remora Pro, that coral life isn't good. Go higher that what it says for tank size, like for example the coral life says for tanks up to 65g, but really shouldn't be used in a tank over 35g IMO.

Dave

[albatross666]

Hi

I would like to ask why the coralife 65 is considered a bad skimmer by many of you responding this question.

I just bought one for over $100 a few months ago and am concerned. I hve invested in coral now want to make sure they stay healthy.

Thanks

[Amack]

i have a super skimmer 220 on a heavily stocked 90g without any problems so im also concerned as to why its a bad skimmer. anyone have advice on good quality inexpensive live rock/sand

[bertoni]

I have a CSS 65 on a 20g tank. I've also run a BakPak and a Remora Pro. The CSS seems to do the best, although it's hard to judge skimmer performance.

[johnny1]

do not use swimming pool sand it is silica sand.

[bertoni]

Silica sand works well, in practice. A lot of people are very successful with it.

[johnny1]

http://www.reefs.org/library/article/r_toonen9.html I wouldnt use silica sand. But here is some reading on it.

[Amack]

my LFS has LR for 2.99 a lb, how can i tell if its good rock or not?

[Amack]

how can i identify good liverock? and if its not of great quality, overtime wont the bacteria multiply?

[dsn112]

Smell it, make sure its pourous(lots of holes). Is it Fiji rock? I picked a few pieces up to buy because they looked cool, but after further inspection I noticed a horrible smell. Look for purple coloring on it also.

[Amack]

sense my eel was raised in FW so im slowly raising the salinity up. at what salinity can i add the LR and LS?

[bertoni]

I'd wait until it was 1.026-1.027.

[Amack]

my LFS only keeps their salt tank at 1.018-1.022

[bertoni]

That's probably fairly tolerable for fish, at least for the short term.