Just ordered my supplies to start need advice

[aznbob]

I just ordered about $300 worth of equipments from petsolutions for my 29 gal tank. Here are the main things that are in question.

51308112 SEACLONE 100 PROTEIN SKIMMER
42901022 30" ORBIT 2X65W SUNPAQ W/LUNAR & FAN
18400930 ARAGAMAX SUGAR SIZED SAND 30#

Will the skimmer if enough for the size tank I have? Will the lights be enough for corals in the future.

I will actually have 45 lbs of sand. Is this enough for a good thickness?

My next step would be setting up the tank and adding live rocks. I plan on going with 25 lbs of live rocks from ebay and 25 lbs of base rocks from reeferrocks.

These are the two auctions I plan on buying the live rocks from:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3212&item=4386151183&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=66793&item=4386901783&rd=1

Has anyone buy any Fiji live rocks from any of these two sellers and/or are familiar with Fiji rocks? I'm just wondering what color should I be expecting? What about coralline? I need some hitchhikers. Should I buy from them if I want hitchhikers? If not, where do you suggest I buy live rocks for cheap?

My questions are how should I cycle the tank? Any cheap way around the water issue instead of buying distilled water from wal-mart? I plan on just using the live rocks to cycle. Will that be ok?

Sorry for the long post. I want to do everything right the first time without problems.

Thanks

 

[zacdl]

www.liverocks.com for good live rock with lots of life.
www.hirocks.com for good base rock

Other than that it looks like you have it down.

For cycling, use dead, raw, unprocessed shrimp from Walmart or something (My walmart gives it to me for free since 1 shrimp doesnt weigh)

Ask your LFS how good your tap water is. If its is good enough you could use plain tap water and just use Aqua Safe or something along with it.
If not you will have to buy distilled water from Walmart. I think its about $40 or so for 30 gallons of water from there (cant remember) but in the long run you need to buy a $100 RO unit, it would save you money and time in the long run.

 

[gilraen]

Hello, welcome to AA

As far as I know your skimmer should be good for your tank, I use to have the same one for a 55 gal. and it worked just fine. Some people might tell you otherwise.

The amount of light should be good for some beginners coral. If you go to www.liveaquaria.com and check their coral section there is a beginners pack. But I would hold on a long while before adding corals.

The sand, well, some people prefer deep beds, 3-4 inches. Some of us like it just 1/2 to 1 inch, it means less algae growth and less bottom cleaning. It really up to you, what you like. Some people like bare bottoms too. The only problem with that is that some inverts like their sand.

I have fiji live rock, I bought mine from liveaquaria and had to cure it for 2 weeks, so far so good. I've never bought any marine stuff from e-bay so I don't know about that. If you want hitchhikers, well, sometimes you get lucky and get urchins with your live rock, sometimes not a thing shows up. You'll have to buy those. Coralline eventually grows on the live rock providing everything is good in the tank.

To cycle the tank you should first place the rock on bare bottom, then add your substrate. Then go to the store an get 1 raw (not seasoned either of course) shrimp and dump it in there (that way you don't have to use live fish to cycle tank), the shrimp will start to decompose and ammonia levels will start to rise. You may want to start testing 1 a week or so. Eventually ammonia will read 0, then you test nitrite, when nitrite is 0 then start testing for nitrate, and this one you want to be less than 20ppm. After all this you can buy a couple of hardy fishes and see how it goes.

For water nothing works better than an RO system, I bought mine from e-bay for $99 and it works wonders, plus it will save you lots of $$ in the long run.

Hope this helps, you can also get a book and get more details.
By the way, are you using a filter? or a sump?


It would be good to add a sump. There's an article here about sumps.

Well, good luck and let us know how it goes!!

 

[malkore]

Good comments all around. I second the idea of going with www.liverocks.com for your live rock...their Keyes rock is absolutely beautiful, and has just the right amount of hitchhikers without going overboard.

That's probably enough sand.
The skimmer should be ok for that size tank too, just hope you got a good price on it.

RO water for water fill and changes.

 

[aznbob]

Thanks for the quick replies. I guess I'll buy water from wal-mart for now and buy a RO system sometime down the road.

I do plan on having a sump, but I haven't decided on if I want to drill a hole or use an overflow. An overflow would of course cost another pretty penny but safe me from drilling holes. Confusion confusion. Just when I thought I had everything planned.

What do you think I should do?

 

[aznbob]

I second the idea of going with www.liverocks.com for your live rock...their Keyes rock is absolutely beautiful, and has just the right amount of hitchhikers without going overboard.

They charge an arm and a leg for those Keys Rocks. I don't think I have the money for pay that much. I want to buy rocks at round $3/lbs. Beautiful as they are, I don't think I can afford.

Unless..someone can convince me that Ocean Pro Aquatic's Fiji Live Rocks has no hitchhikers therefore costing me more to buy inverts later.

 

[zacdl]

I didnt get LR because I want to control what goes into my tank... A lot less unknowns.


I got dead rock from hirocks.com (base rock)

 

[zach119]

id say go for the keys rock i got it and its beautiful i got about 3 starfish a couple of shrimp not sure if there pistol or mantis yet. i also got some worms 2 sea urchins and alot of aipstasia lol.