New Tank: Start w/a bunch of LR and LS?

[luckycat]

I have a 37g tank w/ and Eclipse hood (going to be purchasing a light retro kit) for a new saltwater aquarium (fish only, and live rock/sand). I'm very new to all of this - have never had a saltwater tank....so pls bear with me.

I went to the lfs (I'm learning these abbreviations too ). They recommended a bag of "live sand" and some Instant Ocean salt. I mixed the salt w/our RO water, and put the sand in. Salinity/temp is now looking good. Then I started reading this web site...a great wealth of information...so I'm wondering what my next steps should be.

Should I purchase live rock from liverocks.com, let's say 20 lbs of "base" and 20 lbs of Key rock, and put it all in there at once? Is that OK for a new aquarium? Should I purchase more live sand from liverocks.com (the bag that I had was a 20 lb bag, covering about 3/4 -1" on the bottom of the tank. OR should I put in a "dead shrimp" and let that cycle, then in a few weeks put in some live rock?

I'm stuck on this initial populatio step...I know not to put in fish yet...but I'm wondering if I'll kill every living organism in the live rock if that's all I have initially to do the cycle.

What do you suggest? Thanks in advance!

 

[steve-s]

If you will be purchasing LR for the FOWLR set up, you can just use the rock to cycle the tank. The sand depth is fine but I would actually bump the base rock up to 30-40 lbs instead. The greater amount will handle the bio filtration much better.

Just be sure to have plenty of well aged SW prepared to do (possibley daily) water changes to keep any ammonia spikes in check. That will help preserve as much life as possible. This article should help >>Curing Live Rock? I didn't even know it was sick!!<<

Cheers
Steve