im gonna start up please review

[NEWTOSALT]

im planning on doing fish with decorative rock with the possibility of live rock later on a dsb with a base of home depot sand and live sand as well, should i arrange the hd sand and decorative rock before adding ro water and mixing the salt?and than when the tank is almost full add the live sand , and than set up filter powerheads and heater im gonna wait for the skimmer DOES IT SOUND LIKE IVE GOT IT TOGETHER SO FAR? TIA and after all this is done i will begin "cycling the tank right? thanks as right now iam a sw IDIOT and u guys have brought me a long way thus far i cant stress how appreciative iam THANKS

[NEWTOSALT]

ANYONE?

[quarryshark]

Question, what kind of HD sand are you using? Not all of them are good for aquariums.
Where are you getting LS from?
What are your plans for cycling?

[JPloman]

I would not take any short cuts... that is my my opinion though. The reason I have this opinion is because my tank has had some serious health problems as a result of me taking price short cut.

Starting a salt water can be very expensive, but those costs are well worth it in the long run. I have been spending about $300 a month trying to fix my start up mistakes.

[NEWTOSALT]

im using tropical play sand i asked about it on another post im gonna score the live sand from lfs when icalculate a 6inch sand bed it says i need 298 lbs of sand how much of that will be live sand? this is a 90 gallon iam thinking of using the shrimp method of cycling althou that is my next step so i dont know much about cycling right now just trying to take it one step at atime, can i put the play sand in with decorative rock before adding waterand live sand just to get an idea what it will look like? tia

[seaham358]

IMO you should add all the sand to a dry tank then cover with plastic bags and place a glass bowl in the center, fill tank by pouring water into the bowl. The bags will start to float, just leave them..... When full remove bowl and bags you will have almost clear water, no sand storm.
You can add rock before this just cover as much sand as possible and leave a place for the bowl.
Thats a lot of sand..... Why do you want a 6" sand bed? Have you seen a tank with a DSB? IMO they look like crap... this is just me.... I have 3-4" in both my tanks and they are fine.
You also should mix your water before adding to the tank. I mix in a 35 gal garbage can.
Base rock is ok but if your thinking about getting LR you should get as much as you can right now. LR is the best filtration going..