New Tank

Hello all, I'm just getting back in the game of salt water, took a few years off from the hobby and went into koi keeping which I still am doing. I have an old 75 with some dead rock in it, no water, I'm not sure how many lbs I had in there. It is at least 4-5 years old. I want to do a tank with some corals. I've been doing a lot of reading the past few days and learned about base rock and what not. I can use my current rock as base rock and purchase LR and it will seed eventually? Correct? Do I still need to purchase 75+ of LR? What should my ratio of LR to BR be? Also a local store around me who is known for their salt water has un-cured Fiji for 3.49/lb. I was thinking of going that route and curing it in the tank with a live sand bed. What sort of water changes would I be looking at if I cured it in the tank with no light on or if having the light on would not cause an algae bloom. I'm planning on running with RO. Thanks all.

-Brett

 

Hi Bret

welcome back

after a good clean/ scrub your rock will be fine ( NB are you confident there was never any copper or other meds used in the tank when it was run before? if in doubt dont risk it)

you can use all base rock if you want , it will become live when bacteria colonises it
you can add some live rock for aesthetics and to help establish the coralline
if the rock is intended to be the primary biological filtration then 1.5 - 2lb of rock per gallon of water is the oft quoted rule of thumb

the rest, sorry I cant help as I have never set up a tank using all live rock, so dont know the procedure for curing, and lighting regimes

Steve

 

Welcome to 3reef

 

welcome to 3reef, its less evil then 666reef

 

Welcome to 3Reef!

 

welcome to 3 reef!!