jgranata13
Aquarium Advice Regular
My 37 - now slated to be 55 - gallon FOWLR build (link to that jounal in my signature) has been on hold for quite a while. With the new school year starting, it doesn't look like that's going to be set up before next summer :scry:. In the meantime, however, I realized that I can use the entire year until then to start maturing a bunch of dead rock to use as live rock in that tank. My plan is to re-home my current fish ASAP so that I can get something up and running in the next three weeks. Here's the plan for this setup.
I'll probably get about 40lbs of dead rock and then 5-10lbs of live rock (from as many different sources as possible - I want a bunch of hitchhikers for maximum biodiversity. I know this is almost certainly asking for problems with aptasia or something like that, but I feel like I can take care of all that during this year and end up with only good critters by the time I'm ready to set up the full tank.) I'll put it in my current tank with a couple power heads. Once the live rock that I'm using to seed the dead rock is cured/cycled, I'll be adding one or two small fish (I'd be lying if I didn't say that most of the reason why I'm doing this is because I can't wait until next summer to get started) and using my AC50 for chemical filtration. No special lighting and no substrate.
Hopefully, in addition to ending up with a lot more live rock for next year than I'd otherwise be able to afford if I was to purchase it all live, I'll be able to get some experience under my belt with maintaining water parameters and such in a basic setup before adding all the fish and components that'll be in the system I'm planning.
Any comments or suggestions?
I'll probably get about 40lbs of dead rock and then 5-10lbs of live rock (from as many different sources as possible - I want a bunch of hitchhikers for maximum biodiversity. I know this is almost certainly asking for problems with aptasia or something like that, but I feel like I can take care of all that during this year and end up with only good critters by the time I'm ready to set up the full tank.) I'll put it in my current tank with a couple power heads. Once the live rock that I'm using to seed the dead rock is cured/cycled, I'll be adding one or two small fish (I'd be lying if I didn't say that most of the reason why I'm doing this is because I can't wait until next summer to get started) and using my AC50 for chemical filtration. No special lighting and no substrate.
Hopefully, in addition to ending up with a lot more live rock for next year than I'd otherwise be able to afford if I was to purchase it all live, I'll be able to get some experience under my belt with maintaining water parameters and such in a basic setup before adding all the fish and components that'll be in the system I'm planning.
Any comments or suggestions?
