making progress

[bosslady]

The hole is cut in the wall and we should be putting the tank in place tomorrow. I will post pictures than.

I want to make sure I have the right light. I have (2) 40w 48" Sun-glo, (1) 40w 48" power glo, (1) 40w 48" marine glo. I plan on putting LR and LS to start. Than I wanted to add a cleaning crew. Than a few fish. I planned on adding different additions a slowly. I want to make sure I know what I am doing before I add to much.

I decided to buy new LR and get rid of what came with the tank. I have lot of rock that came with the tank, but I was told that a lot of fish died in the tank before the previous owner took it down. He said he was not having any problems or deaths in the tank. He put a fish from a neighbors tank in his and white spot started appearing on the fish. He lost all his fish.

I don't want to start off with someone else problems. I cleaned the pump and other equipment with salt and vinager. Should I do anything else?

One last question. Has anyone bought LR or LS from the web store liverock.com? The nearest store that has saltwater supplies is 90 miles away from me.

Jeanett

[fernzpat]

Wow,

I would never throw away good live rock. The spots on your friends fish were probably micro organisms that are present in EVERY salt water tank. Something (inadequate filtration or water changes) may have stress his fish (or had they just come from a fish store?) and allowed these organisms to thrive...

Is that live rock already out of your tank???

[bosslady]

I haven't set up the my tank yet. When I bought the tank the guy gave me the LR. I was dry. It had been out of water for a while not sure how long, but at least a couple of weeks. I have it in a barrel with water and salt. Not sure what I hope to gain from that.

It is possible that cupramine might have been placed in the tank when the LR was "alive". I'm not sure.

I want to have feather dusters in my tank some where down the line. That's why I am afraid to use the LR he gave me.

If there is something I can do with it PLEASE let me know. I don't want to throw it out if there is a way to use it. Clean it what ever.

Jeanett

[fernzpat]

If the live rock had been out of the water for a couple of weeks, you now have wonderful base rock to put on the bottom of your tank and seed by putting live rock above it. It will eventuallly become "live" rock again... The fact that you now have it in a barrel (with some circulation?) is nice as it will help rinse any left over contaminates from the rock. I would change that water from time to time.

Do you have any other salt fish tanks?

Feather dusters (small ones at least) are very easy to grow in a tank and very often are hitchhikers on good liverock....

Originally Posted by bosslady

I want to have feather dusters in my tank some where down the line. That's why I am afraid to use the LR he gave me.

If there is something I can do with it PLEASE let me know. I don't want to throw it out if there is a way to use it. Clean it what ever.

It is rare if not impossible to properly remove copper from LR once contaminated, it is just to porous. If you are not able to properly accertain the status of the rock from the previous owner then I would not risk using it. Same goes for aany substrate that was previously there as well.

You could however minimize the loss by advertising in you local "cheap" paper and sell the rock to someone that has an FO set up or FOWLR and copper is not a concern to them. They can still use the rock for bacterial surface area to aid in nitrification.

Cheers
Steve

[bosslady]

I am trying to get intouch with the previous owner to check it out before I use it. I went to my local home depot to buy sand. I got play sand that had been washed and dried. That's all it said on the bag. I came home and did the test I read about with vinegar. My sand just sat there soooooooo I guess I bought the wrong kind. It was the only kind I could find. The wal-mart doesn't have garden basic, and I can't find southdown or any other sand that has been mentioned on the post. any suggestion?

Jeanett