Reef Rock

[jchockey12]

What is the best place to find quality and cost effective Dry rock for aquascaping?

I am very new to this and any help/suggestions are welcome.

Does dry rock have to be put in a tank soon after purchase or can it sit for a year? I'm not sure how long the process is going to take for me to get all the equipment so this might be a longer build process (aka I'm not sure how much $$ my wife is going to be okay with spending at once)

What kind of glue is used?

What shapes make the best aquascapes? I'm looking to buy a 75G tank.

I want to try to have coral.

I want to try and keep a Mandarin Dragonet so any suggestions for this would be great as well.

TIA

 

[Andy Sager]

What is the best place to find quality and cost effective Dry rock for aquascaping?

I am very new to this and any help/suggestions are welcome.

Does dry rock have to be put in a tank soon after purchase or can it sit for a year? I'm not sure how long the process is going to take for me to get all the equipment so this might be a longer build process (aka I'm not sure how much $$ my wife is going to be okay with spending at once)

What kind of glue is used?

What shapes make the best aquascapes? I'm looking to buy a 75G tank.

I want to try to have coral.

I want to try and keep a Mandarin Dragonet so any suggestions for this would be great as well.

TIA

When you say " dry rock", you mean dead rock with no active life on it. ( Commonly called Base rock.) If this is the case, I would go to your favorite local shop and see what they have available. ( Shipping costs on rocks will be crazy because of the weight.) You want to use rock that is found in the ocean and not from freshwater as ocean rock will be based on calcium carbonate so it will help keep your water quality better in a tank. Freshwater rocks are usually inert so they do nothing to or for the tank. There are some types of lava rocks that tend to leech phosphates so you want to stay away from that if you intend on having corals. When you are ready to start establishing your system, you would want to buy live rock so that you get the nitrifying bacteria that are on the rock. This needs to be placed in the tank asap. You would also want to do this before adding any fish because live rock can have some die off on it during transit and it can cloud up your water and spike the ammonia level. This works for establishing a good bacteria bed when it clears up. If you don't want to go through that, you can use products like Fritzyme #9 which is live nitrifying bacteria for marine tanks. There are a lot of products out there that supposedly are live cultures but do not really work or work well. I have personal experience with the #9 so I know it works. ( Always check the use by date as it only has a 6 month shelf life so you want as fresh as possible. )

As for the mandarin, they are a tough fish to keep. They should not go into a newly established tank either. Their diet is specialized and you would need to establish a colony of copapods for them to feed on. If you can get ones that were hatchery raised, they are trained to accept a wider variety of foods but they can be costly. Either way tho, I would ask your shop to feed the one you are looking at so you see it actually eat and then purchase whatever food you see it eating.

Hope this helps.