Saltwater tank newbie

[Zacks]

See the rock you have is what I was looking for,


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[Zacks]

See this stuff looks ridiculous wouldn't you say?


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[Zacks]

Now I also added a bottle of this stuff, and I know it obviously doesn't instant cycle, but it definitely grabbed a jump start on it


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[Sniperhank]

Is that blue rock painted? If so get it out. It can poison your tank.
As for the damsel and biosparta, you can use the stuff to help out. The damsel is just giving you a fish in cycle. It is the ammonia source. To do so, you'll have to keep a close eye on the ammonia and nitrite levels an do water changes when they elevate to prevent the fish death. Damsels are normal fish for a fish in cycle because they are hardy and don't die easily. This method isn't widely used anymore as many consider it inhumane since ammonia burns gills of fish and shortens their life span.


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[Zacks]

Maybe so, but with the bio-spira it should begin to start breaking down ammonia... And yeah I haven't been using the painted rock. It's just stupid looking I bought a 5 pound box of this Caribbean "live rock" for 4.99/lb and I'll just return it. My question to you guys is should I get more of this coral Skeleton rock, or look into getting some more porus rock. At my lfs they have a round 9 pound rock for 11.99/lb and I almost had a heart attack at that price. But petco surprisingly has some decent live rock. But the issue is most live rock is darker than this coral stuff and if like to fit the coral into my aquascape so I don't know how I would go about doing that


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[Sniperhank]

Color doesn't matter, the rock being porous is. If you want better pricing, maybe order some dry or base rock online. Bulkreefsupply.com is a good place to start.


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[Outlaw]

Looks like CaribSea "Life Rock". A new alternative. Reef friendly (isn't harvested from reefs), and had dried spored bacteria. New fangled stuff. Seems to be pretty popular.

Check it out here.
www.caribsea.com/caribsea/itempage_rock_liferock.html

 

[Zacks]

Yeah you're right it does look like that, but I've got coralife 50/50 bulbs and the rocks end up looking neon purple and it starts to look unnatural


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[Zacks]

Alright so good news, I'll be returning that purple rock to my lfs, and I found a completely marine fish store 15 minutes away from me that I've never visited before, their website has insane low prices on live rock and I'm planning on getting 20-25 lbs in addition to my 3.5 lbs of coral skeleton live rock tank is looking much clearer, and my little damsels doing great, loves to play in the flow of the water


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[Zacks]

So anyways, I went to the new store I found and they had everything in bulk, I bought 16.5 lbs of live rock for 2.99/lb so that puts me up at 20... My damsel is doing great, and the tank looks awesome I was also wondering what this was... I found about 3 of them on my rocks


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[Sniperhank]

Mini bristle stars. Harmless filter feeders. I've heard about them being a stage in the developing tank and didn't believe it, as I had tons of them in my tank for a year. I look in my tank today and I don't see any without digging around for them.


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[Zacks]

So anyways, for the future, (next weekend or so) I want to complete my stock... I have my little damsel, and in addition I would like a six line wrasse, and a royal gramma. I'm definitely open to getting rid of the damsel if there's any sort of problem and replacing him w/ a false Perc or something... Unless they need pairs. But I do want to go with three small fish. Ive heard its an ideal stock to reduce aggression and shouldn't hurt too much on the bio load


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[Zacks]

thought id send out an update on the tank, I actually did in fact give the damsel back to my fish guy, and I bought a six line wrasse the other day. I m fairly confident it's fully cycled by now after a bottle of bio spira in the beginning, a few weeks with 21 lbs. of live rock. So anyways, I saw my wrasse nip at a white starfish looking thing on the live rock and knocked it off. So what I'm wondering is will he be safe with a royal gramma, or something else possibly?


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