Seeds of life planted

[unfamous]

Well, I got some of my LR in today. 26.2 lbs. It's been cured for 4 weeks so it's actually partially cured. No matter, new tank anyway. According to Fedex, my 25 lbs or so of Vanuatu should be here Friday. I also picked up 2 lbs of assorted pieces for the sump. With my dry rock I will have right at 85 lbs of rock in the tank. So what say the masses? Is that enough fo a FOWLR tank or should I add more? I want room for the fish to swim but am willing, if need be, to stack it a bit higher. I'll add pictures when I get the other LR in the tank. I can also place rock further back in the tank. Right now it extends for right to left down the center basically.

I'm pretty excited. I'm looking forward to seeing this mini ecosystem grow! Hopefully I can live up to the challenge. To have a better chance at doing just that, I also picked up a refractometer. Much easier than the hydrometer though I will admit, my method of averaging readings wasn't worth a crap. I figured, with the hydrometer, that I was sitting at 1.021. In reality I am at 1.025. I'm just glad it was off that much in the other direction!

[harthag12]

How many gallons / what size is the tank?

[unfamous]

Oops, forgot to post that! It's a 48"x18"x24" 90 gallon with a 12"x30" sump filled 9" inches deep.

Going to ask this here but might post it in it's own thread:

How do your determine how much rock? Everyone says 1 - 2 lbs per gallon. Well, some of this stuff, like the Fiji, is very light, yet fairly large. Some of it, like Pacific shelf and Vanuatu, can be smaller but much heavier. So how did someone come up with the 1 - 2 rule? 2 lbs per gallon Fiji would likely fill up my 90 gallon tank and would have large amounts of surface area, whereas the same weight of the others wouldn't fill but a third of the tank and would have much less surface area. I just don't understand.

[ManotheSea]

Pet stores made up the rule of 1-2 lbs per gallon to sell you more rock. REALY.

Just set it up to look the way you would like to see it. Set it and forget it. If you have extra rock you can throw it into the sump. Done.... dont over think it.

[Payton034]

You have a good amount of live rock and probably more than enough. I have maybe 40-50 in a 75 reef , I also have a very light load , 2 clowns and yellow tang and it is adequate enough with their bioload

[L_Spec]

I agree with just getting what you think is nice and not focus on numbers too much. I would only ever worry about the amount of LR if you had a huge bio load.

The dimensions of your tank is pretty much what I want right now, except a bit more shallow! Good luck and have fun with your tank. What sort of livestock are you thinking of putting in there?

[PCFisher66]

I think it's better to have a little less. Over time you may buy rocks with coral on them and this will leaves room for growth and new stuff.

[unfamous]

All good points folks. Since the rock is the only bio I have right now, I guess it's okay! In the long term I have the idea of having 2 clowns, and only 3 more small fish. I haven't decided which ones yet though. That's a total of five fish over the next year. I will also have a few peppermint shrimp, a few snails, a small cucumber and whatever came with the rock. Maybe in a year or so I would like to add an anemone, but I have lots to learn and experience before I attempt that.

I really like the idea of seeing this glass and plastic tank come to life. Even without the fish! Those will simply be icing on the cake for me. I hope I get some interesting hitchhikers with the rock. Good or bad they will teach me a lot about this hobby and about life. As for the clowns, the first time I ever went deep in saltwater a clown was the first fish I saw. They always remind me of that day.

As for today, this is what I've got:

Temp 78.7
Salinity 1.024
Ammonia 0.5
Nitrate 20
Nitrite 3.0
Alk 300
pH 8.0

[MrTuskfish]

.... dont over think it.

Great advice; not only for this thread, but for half of the junk we ever face in life.

[unfamous]

So I was thinking today as I was testing the water, at what point will I see life? Some of the levels rose slightly overnight so something is alive in there. I just can't see anything. I'm guessing it will be around week 2 but was wondering what the more experienced have to say.