Help with live rock!!

[jackm]

OK firstly i have read some of the questions about LR which there seem to be quite a lot but this one is different, so please dont ignore it

I am setting up a new marine tank, all i want to know is as i dont have a lot of money and plan on putting live rock into my tank every few weeks or so, starting with just a bit of LR but gradually increasing, obviously keeping the amount of fish i keep during the build up time to a bare minimum, i understand that this will be hard as there wont be much bacteria in the tank at the beginning so should i use a filter with a carbon sponge and the normal bacteria sponges with a freshwater tank, but reduce the amount of sponges as i put more LR in. Or is there any way of doing this build up technique?
also what is the bare minimum amount of live rock to put into a 125 liter/33 US gallon tank, again considering i will not have a lot fish in the tank i also plan on using a small layer of live sand 1-2" i know it isnt enough but it cant help.
TIA
jack

 

[ryguy]

well you probably want no less than 30 lbs of LR in your tank for it to be an effective bio-filter. you can start off with less and work your way up to as much as you can afford, but make sure you have another filter (sponge should suffice) working until you build your LR up to close to the pound per Gallon.

Ryan

 

[jackm]

OK great
thanks a lot for the direct answere which i often find hard to get in this hobby
Jack

 

[Florida8]

Hi! I started my very 1st 55g sw tank some years back with little money. I added a bag of fine sand from the LFS, now I know you can buy play sand from home depot etc... which is a good bit cheaper. I then added the biggest HOB filter from walmart, it had 2 sides, I ran it with the AC bags and rinsed them when I did my PWC in the water I removed and put them back in, then I changed them to ones with no carbon, but would run my carbon every other month... just to polish the water, which it did. I also bought 1 power head from walmart as well... for the other end away from the HOB... I later added one at that end as well. I then added a about 20 pounds base rock you can get a nice amount (30lbs small pieces) at www.HIROCKS.com for 30something shipped. Then you can add a little bit of LR each pay day... which is what I did. I bought 1 new pc per week and it was great. I never had a spike or anything by adding the one new pc per week... but I also bought cured rock... most had little to no die off from being transported to my home wrapped in wet paper or in a cooler of sw.

I later added a Wet Dry, bio balls removed with added LR rubble. I always kept my HOB.

My tank was up for years and eventually had enough LR to sustain without additional filtering, but I ran it anyhow.

I had 3 strips of NO lighting on my 1st tank and have found the cheapest lighting that is NOT DIY on Ebay... over $100 off of the LFS prices.

I had no problems and it was high $$$ even so, but it was a little at a time... much easier on the pocket and mind LOL

Good luck and keep us posted!

 

[jackm]

OK thanks again
I live in london, england and dont know where to get this base rock from, is it just normal LR but broken up pieces as i am trying it hard to find,
dont worry i will keep yall posted and plan on making a mini diary with photos on setting it up to help others
thanks again, ps if any one else wants to add any help it would be greatly appreciated
jack