Overwhelmed!

[victoriamoe]

Hello all. My name is Megan and I'm here with my friend Victoria. We're about to start a SW tank, but neither of us has ever done it before. I'm doing a bunch of research about sand, LR and other aspects, but each answer leads to more questions. My two main questions I have are: 1)the benefits of live sand versus dead sand and 2) the benefits of LR versus not live rock. I know you want to create as natural an environment as possible. However, we're reluctant to invest hundreds of dollars on a LR and sand and coral when the tank will most likely crash. So, can anyone help us out and help us decide if we should use live sand or dead sand and live rock or not? Thank you so much.

 

[David Shaw]

Live rock is populated with beneficial bacteria that seed the tank and are part of the natural filtration system of the system. Usually it has lovely purple coralline over it and looks great from the outset. (dip it to first flush the worms though) unless you want hitchhikers.

Dead rock becomes live rock, but takes longer and you have to go through the rock maturing process.

Some people do a mix of the two, live and dead rock. I personally went for live rock from the outset, along with live sand. However, if you have live rock, dead sand will soon become live and seeded by it.

It is all down to personal preference, i used live sand and live rock from day 1, and my tank cycle came and went so quickly i missed it. This also meant i had what looked like a matured tank right from the beginning. Obviously this is a more expensive route though.

 

[Eric]

I would use dry sand due to cost and the fact that live sand is really more of a gimmick that anything IMO, use a deli shrimp to kick start the cycle and the dry will be live soon enough.

I would also use dry rock for the better part of your stack and use a few lbs of live rock to seed the dry.

Hope that helps, I would chat but I don't get off work till 2:30pm easter standard time I'll log in when I get home and see if I can catch you.

 

[victoriamoe]

I've been researching which fish to start in the tank and so far I've come up with a cleaner shrimp, a banded coral shrimp, a clown green goby, a yellowtail damselfish and two clownfish. Now, is a deli shrimp the same as a cleaner shrimp? Thank you for all your help!

 

[GrendelPrime]

live sand is a sham like eric said, u never mentioned what size tank u have but what ever size it is u can do 90% dead rock with about 10% live rock to seed and u will save alot of money doin it that way

 

[victoriamoe]

I'm pretty sure our tank is about 95 gallons. It's 360 litres.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Now, is a deli shrimp the same as a cleaner shrimp?

Deli Shrimp - used to start a tank "cycling"

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...ners/20945-just-exactly-what-cycled-tank.html

Cleaner Shrimp

Saltwater Aquarium Shrimps for Marine Reef Aquariums: Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp

 

[Eric]

A deli shrimp is the same thing you eat just toss a dead one in the tank when you set it up and that will kick start the cycle as it decomposes

 

[victoriamoe]

LOL omg ok. I a bit confused when I looked up deli shrimp and all these pictures of food came up. Makes more sense now.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

we are all learning... just keep :read: and asking questions