a few startup questions

[ryguy]

I got some LR on order due next week and i'm starting to panic slightly cause i'm not quite ready with my gameplan. A friend gave me an old 90G tank to use to cycle my LR, but I need to cycle his old "dead" rock with it. This rock has been sitting in a coulpe of large tubs and has got spiderwebs, woodbugs etc in it. He threw it all in the water i was mixing before scrubbing anything off and now the water is kinda cloudy. I worry about whether or not to put my LR in the same tank when it comes in....he's a SW vet, and says it'll be fine but i don't wanna kill more life than I have to on the new LR. It's got a huge beckett style of skimmer running on the tank with a mag 9 and a couple 402's on it.

Should I place my rock in that tank anyway or something seperate?

I have my 46G main tank with RO water in it without salt yet. I kinda messed this up.... I should have used a few tubs to fill with RO and then add salt. I know I can do it in the tank but I worry that I willkick the sand bed up with the mag 9 and that salt wont dissolve properly.

Should this be a concern?

And lastly, If I choose to cure the LR in the main tank once the salt is mixed and temperature up to snuff, shoulf I worry about the die-off building up in the sand bed and spoiling it?

Ryan

 

[Hara]

Die off will not hurt the sand bed. I would not worry about mixing the two rocks. Nothing on the old rock should affect the new. If the new rock is uncured you will have alot of die off, no way to avoid it. Even "cured" rock, when shipped, will experience some.

I would not mix the salt in the main tank. It is only a 46 gallon, take out the water and mix the salt out of the tank. You can still leave a little water in the tank and not disturb the bed to much. Don't run the pumps until all have settled again.