Super. Noob. Lots of questions. Sorry folks.

[Iwantacephalopod]

:bum: OK hello everyone. I am brand new to this forum and junk like that and I want to start a Reef tank.
Questions as follows...
1: How much live rock is needed for a 25 gal or 30 gal tank?

2: Do you really need live sand or can I just leave it glass bottom and put polyps and junk there

3. Anyone wanan give me some tips for a begginger on other stuff like..cycling and water change.

Thanks everyone.
I am sorry for stupid questions but your bound to ask them eventually.
Thanks,
Mr. Tonberry

[dattack]

1. About 1 to 1.5 lbs/gallon should be good biological filtration for your tank.
2. Live sand is also good for biological filtration especially if it's a dsb. Although sand can become active after addition of live rock and adding a detrivore kit. You can go with a bareless bottom for your tank but might have to do a lot of skimming and hope the live rock is good enough for filtration.
3. Tips: Check out the link at the near top "For those new to the hobby"

Good luck.:D

[tyoberg]

In the old days, bare bottom tanks with 1-2 lbs of LR per gallon was the norm. Elevated nitrate levels were typical (20-30ppm).

These days, a DSB is considered the way to go. A deep sand bed will convert NO3 (a contributor to algae probs) into N2 gas. It is pretty typical for a tank with a mature DSB to have zero nitrates.

1-2 lbs of LR is still good to have, although a sand bed can probably handle all of the filtration. You still need rock to add biodiversity and to have a place to mount corals to.

Cycling is probably best done simply by adding LR to your tank. It still takes a few weeks to cycle, but you don't have to worry when your fish turn colors and die.

I do a 20% waterchange every 3-4 weeks.

[Iwantacephalopod]

Wow you guys rock. Thanks a bunch. This is my other cool hobby. My main hobby is cultivation of rare tropical pitcher plants fromt he jungles of borneo. I figure if you like strange fish you would proly like that to.
Anyhow I appreciate any additional comments. Thank you very much for your time
Thanks forum,
Devon:bum: :bum: :bum:

[Court_Jester]

In response to #2:

Yes you can go bare bottom and be very successful - many people have and still use this method. If you decide to do this keep your fish load light to avoid nitrate problems. By light load I mean 1" of fish per 5 gal (adult size, not the size they are when you buy them).

[T3]

Hey Devon,

The mention of your primary hobby caught my eyes as I have seen many of the giant pitcher plants during my two years roughing it on a small Indonesian island call Arrija (sp?). They are quite interesting plants to say the least.

I don't have any pitcher plants, but do grow orchids as another hobby.

Good luck with your reef tank!

Tom

[karlas]

you want 1-1 1/2 lbs lr/gall for your tank

here are some great beginner sites

reef 101 (http://www.reefcorner.com/reef%20keeping_101.htm)

starting with marines (http://home.gardenet.co.za/landman/Starting%20with%20Marines.htm)

i do a 10%water change every week. every body does that different though once a week, every other week, once a month etc. you just have to figure out which one works best for your tank.

also buy a seperate container for your water changes. mix the salt to the same salinity to the main tank and add any supplements to your water. i use a air pump with and airstone and let it go a couple of days. it is not a good idea to mix it and put it directly in the tank. and never put salt directly in your tank with live stock because you can actually burn your fish. you may want a heater to keep it the same temp as your tank also.

[slimytadpole]

Generally, most people stick to 1-2lbs of rock per gallon. It's really tough to say, since given the origin or of the rock, two rocks with exactly the same size could be of much different weight, depending on how porous it is.
If you go with a Deep Sand Bed, using a fine, surgar grain size, the rock probably won't really be an issue. The sand bed will perform 90% of the filtration work anyway, so just worry about how the rock looks, rather than jamming in more rock then you need.

Don't use unfiltered tap water.

As for cycling, that's going to depend on what you want to do for rocks, and your sand bed. I'll give my experience:
I ordered my rock (#50) and bought salt (instant ocean, I recommend AGAINST Coralife Sea-Salt). The tank was 29 gallons. I bought 20 gallons of bottled spring water from the local grocery store, since I didn't have my RO/DI unit yet. I mixed the salt and water up in 5 gallon buckets (I stongly recommend picking up 2 or 3 5Gal buckets at your local hardware store) and filled the tank. I set up the skimmer and heater. When the rock arrived, I placed it in the tank to cure. Now, I don't care if you got pre-cured rock or not, there WILL be some die-off as a result of shipping. So now, there is nothing in the tank except water and rock and equipment. After waiting about a week for the rock to cure, I drained about 2 gallons of water (per bucket) into 3 5-gallon buckets. Then I removed all rock from the tank and placed them in the buckets. I then drained the remainder of the water in the tank. Since I expect quite a bit of die off, I considered this water junk, and threw it away. I then refilled the tank with fresh salt water, and added my sand. 4 inches of southdown paly sand. Don't worry about the cloudiness. The sand will settle once it is properly coated with bacteria (as soon as you add the rock). I took each rock and used an old knife to scrape away any obviously dead matter. You'll know it when you see it. It's black/dark grey, and stinks. As each rock was cleaned it was placed back in the buckets. When I was all done, I took the rocks out of the buckets and placed them back in the tank (rocks only; I flushed the water in the buckets). The next day, after the sand had mostly settled, I arranged the rocks to my liking. Then I let the tank cycle. Now, If you've properly cured the rocks, and made sure to cut away the dead stuff, you are going to find the cycling process goes much faster. Arguably, I probably should have let the rocks cure a bit more after cutting away the dead stuff. Anyway, after about a week, Ammonia was undetectable, as were nitrites. Nitrates were were about 5ppm. I wouldn't add any fish until the Nitrates were <20 ppm, so I added my 2 fish. Corals and snails were added later, after nitrates were undetectable.
I probably would have waited a bit longer on the corals and snails, but I was upgrading from a 10G to a 29G, and needed to use both the equipment and rock from the 10 gallon, so things got added a bit faster than I would have ideally wanted.

[Iwantacephalopod]

Hey uh on a 29 gallon tank, how many 24 inch flourscents do I need for a reef tank. I am reading on the internet and junk and they start talking about 55 gallons. I am somewhat lazy but can anyone give me a ballpark answer or if anyone knows a definite answer , could you help me then?
Thanks guys,
Devon

[slimytadpole]

Depends on what you mean for Florecents.
Avoid regular NO tubes. Too weak. I am using 3 24" VHO tubes on my 29G. I may more to 4, but I find 3 works well. Two 50/50, and one Actinic.