Seeding Base Rock

Planning on seeding 40lbs of base rock. I was thinking of doing it in a 45g. I have a long 36g I would rather use but thought it might be a bit too small. Looking for suggestions/advice for:

filtration
lighting
flow

This tank is intended to be set up strictly for seeding rock to be moved to other tanks.

Thanks.

 

I have to be honest, I usually pop addition rock into my sump and DT then just let nature take its course, sorry.
I would imagine that setting this up would almost be the same as setting up a normal tank, flow, lights heat etc ? But I am certainly not any way an expert.

 

+1

For dry base rock, I just add it to the DT. The only reason I would precure rock is if it were uncured LR and the intended DT was already established. Whether the tank is matured or still cycling, dry rock will have no ill effect.

 

I recently upgraded my tank to a much larger one, and had required a nice chuck of dry rock a few months before the build was done. I decided to seed it and get the coralline growing early.

I simply stuck it in 15-20 gallon tub, added some tank water out of the old tank from a water change. I tried to not use the dirty water from the sump, but rather some clear water from the water column.

Put a spare light on it, and added power head and a sponge filter.

I made sure to top it off once a day for evaporation and added new water to it from the old tank during water changes.

I also added a few small pieces of rubble from my LFS, and a handful of cheto from my sump.

It started getting some good coralline growth in just a few weeks and all the little bugs and stuff from the cheto migrated to the rocks.

 

@OnlyTono were the lights T5? I was thinking about using 2 fluorescents.

 

I would add a heater too to make the tank the same temp as your DT. Can't hurt, and as far as I know having the water in the 70-78 range will only benefit the bacteria, algae and critters.