Seeking more biodiversity

[jhawkor]

Hello everyone, my 90 gallon tank has been running for a few weeks, and I sort of miss all of the life that I had in my old tank. I started my 90 with almost all dry rock except for one small rock that has some nice, bright sponge growth on it. However, I don't have all the feather dusters, worms, tunicates, amphipods, etc that I loved on my old tank. I'm thinking about just buying maybe 10lbs of Tampa Bay Saltwater live rock, and maybe some of their sand. Will this help improve my tanks biodiversity? Thanks.

[Amphiprion]

Any introduction of wild stock will add biodiversity. This gets more difficult, though, as many things (advice, some methods, etc.) try to minimize biodiversity based on the fear of pest introduction.

[jhawkor]

Any introduction of wild stock will add biodiversity. This gets more difficult, though, as many things (advice, some methods, etc.) try to minimize biodiversity based on the fear of pest introduction.

I'm willing to risk it. Dry rock is boring to me.

[Chas]

jhawkor - I started out pretty much in the same way. To get the critters I was looking for I purchased a couple of small/medium rocks from local shops when I found something that looked interesting on them. I also up sand (sometimes just a cup or less) from as many people as I could when I started up the tank. I grabbed cheato and other macros from a few different sources along the way too. I even scrounged up a couple of bags of muck from the bottom of a couple of live rack vats to put in my fuge.

I ended up getting red/brown planaria along the way but it hasn't really been a problem for me. The fish (my wrasse mostly) keep it next to nil in the tank but my fuge has a good population of them. That's the worst of the pests that I picked up and I'm OK with that.

6 months after starting the tank you couldn't tell the difference between the dry rock and the live rock. For me I get just as much enjoyment out of the small bugs/critters as I do out of the corals, other inverts and fish.

~Charlie

[jrsydevi1]

To me.. half the fun of this sport is sitting staring at my tank looking for things I never even knew were in there.. I say go for it! :beer:

[thor109]

Order some stuff from "garf". You will get 50 years of biodiversity. You might be scared to put hands in tank 6 months from now but you will have lots of stuff.

[jhawkor]

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

Order some stuff from "garf". You will get 50 years of biodiversity. You might be scared to put hands in tank 6 months from now but you will have lots of stuff.

Are you referring to the 'GARF Grunge'? Is it just live sand?