Sk8r
02/17/2014, 11:16 AM
Setting up rockwork is tricky. It weighs considerable while your tank is empty, and then when you add water, it feels as if you're stacking balloons.
Here's how I do it.
First, I take a sheet of eggcrate lighting grid (construction area, Lowes, Ace or HD) and lay down. This can pose difficulties for tanks that may have trouble keeping inverts: nassarius,conch, etc can clean the bottom, but if you are too small or have predators on snails, this is a no-go.
If you can have it, it will prevent 'point load' on your bottom glass. This is where a sharp point on a rock concentrates all the weight above on a tiny area.
If you can have it, it's a nice thing, and protective.
Starting the rockwork, I settle my ugliest, least holey rock onto that. I like to arrange pillars, upright spires. I prop it as needed. And if I'm using a mix of dry and live rock, I save my best rock for the top layer.
Then, with the bottom course laid, and rock that will definitely be taller than the sandbed, I add the sand. I usually use dry aragonite sand that is washed within an inch of its life: this takes an insane amount of washing to get all the powder off.
It doesn't matter that the sand is in lumps and clumpy. Time and critters will flatten it.
Now start building shelves atop your spires. If you have some really tall spires, just build up against them. Spires are wonderful at calming fish fights, and the flow of current around them is like furniture to fish---currents are nothing to our eyes, but fish love to follow them.
Build arches. Build open spaces for water to flow. At every point, test your rock for wiggle. Work until it feels solid. Corals hate vibration, I'm firmly convinced. And those shelves can hold corals. Try to find rocks with holes that will nestle the points of frag plugs, etc, and keep those available. Think about siting corals, if this is to be a reef. You have to provide staggered shelves so that various corals can sit at various distances from the light, and so that no one is in the shade. There are a few corals that like shade---bubble and sun---but most stony will not thrive except in strong light, and even zoas and mushrooms, who like moderate light, prefer a moderately lit nice exposed spot.
Test constantly for stability.
Now...adding water. A neat trick or two. if you have room, set a small bowl on the sand and pour water neatly into that. But if you don't have room for that, try this: take a regular garbage bag, flattened, and drape over the entire rockwork and sand, loosely: then add water. The garbage bag will keep the water stream from kicking up the dust left in your sand. There's no way you'll escape cloudy water at first: every tank has it UNTIL THE BACTERIA BEGIN TO COAT THE DUST GRAINS and make it stick together: then the water clears.
WHen done, remove the bowl/bag and turn on your pump and heater and start your tank cycling.
You really don't need to feed cycling tanks, but if you simply must do something, just add a few flakes of regular fishfood (it's called ghost-feeding) a day until you see ammonia and see it go away and your regular feedings can't get it back.
Then you can start with 4 weeks of inverts in there to poo into that sandbed and break it in gently. If you've used dry rock, remember that live rock is live all the way through to its heart, with little bacteria. Right now your new rock is live only on the surface, and most is still dead and useless. A few more weeks will let that bacteria go on penetrating and multiplying---above all do not push a new tank. Start with the inverts, which don't poo much, and quarantine your first fish for four weeks before you allow a fish in there to add to the tank's burden.
Remember forever: if your tank starts going really wonky and the alkalinity is headed south or the tank smells, get all the fish out first, and all the inverts if it's really headed in a bad direction: this lets the bacteria sort out their problem and handle the load before the fish get back in there. Always have enough salt in house to set up a qt, and always have a spare tank that you could press into service: it can live in your closet until needed for qt, but don't get caught helpless to do what will save your investment. Protect your bacteria! Never put in an antibiotic (translation: kills bacteria) or copper treatment into your tank. Your bacterial colony is your prize possession: on it, and on its good health, all your pretty reef depends. Every decision you make about your tank has to be: bacteria first and foremost! You can lose a fish and come back; but if you lose those bacteria, you're hosed.
Likewise, if you're a fish-only, bacteria still matter. Your filter-cleaning creates a bit of feast and famine for the bacteria in your rock and sand, and your bioballs, and filter pads and wherever. Understand that. If you can back up your filter with live rock, sand, and, if possible, a sizeable fuge to hold green plants and sand and more rock and a population of copepods, your fish will likely benefit from the stray pods and your water certainly will. Keeping your alkalinity in the comfort zone will mean fish with good slime coats, and that means fish that aren't easy prey for parasites and disease or wound infection.
Hope this ramble helps: it's really all one topic---and I hope it helps make it clear that it really is all interconnected. Get it set up right, get it stable, get it cycled, and then take care of it as if it's a living thing---because it is.
Here's how I do it.
First, I take a sheet of eggcrate lighting grid (construction area, Lowes, Ace or HD) and lay down. This can pose difficulties for tanks that may have trouble keeping inverts: nassarius,conch, etc can clean the bottom, but if you are too small or have predators on snails, this is a no-go.
If you can have it, it will prevent 'point load' on your bottom glass. This is where a sharp point on a rock concentrates all the weight above on a tiny area.
If you can have it, it's a nice thing, and protective.
Starting the rockwork, I settle my ugliest, least holey rock onto that. I like to arrange pillars, upright spires. I prop it as needed. And if I'm using a mix of dry and live rock, I save my best rock for the top layer.
Then, with the bottom course laid, and rock that will definitely be taller than the sandbed, I add the sand. I usually use dry aragonite sand that is washed within an inch of its life: this takes an insane amount of washing to get all the powder off.
It doesn't matter that the sand is in lumps and clumpy. Time and critters will flatten it.
Now start building shelves atop your spires. If you have some really tall spires, just build up against them. Spires are wonderful at calming fish fights, and the flow of current around them is like furniture to fish---currents are nothing to our eyes, but fish love to follow them.
Build arches. Build open spaces for water to flow. At every point, test your rock for wiggle. Work until it feels solid. Corals hate vibration, I'm firmly convinced. And those shelves can hold corals. Try to find rocks with holes that will nestle the points of frag plugs, etc, and keep those available. Think about siting corals, if this is to be a reef. You have to provide staggered shelves so that various corals can sit at various distances from the light, and so that no one is in the shade. There are a few corals that like shade---bubble and sun---but most stony will not thrive except in strong light, and even zoas and mushrooms, who like moderate light, prefer a moderately lit nice exposed spot.
Test constantly for stability.
Now...adding water. A neat trick or two. if you have room, set a small bowl on the sand and pour water neatly into that. But if you don't have room for that, try this: take a regular garbage bag, flattened, and drape over the entire rockwork and sand, loosely: then add water. The garbage bag will keep the water stream from kicking up the dust left in your sand. There's no way you'll escape cloudy water at first: every tank has it UNTIL THE BACTERIA BEGIN TO COAT THE DUST GRAINS and make it stick together: then the water clears.
WHen done, remove the bowl/bag and turn on your pump and heater and start your tank cycling.
You really don't need to feed cycling tanks, but if you simply must do something, just add a few flakes of regular fishfood (it's called ghost-feeding) a day until you see ammonia and see it go away and your regular feedings can't get it back.
Then you can start with 4 weeks of inverts in there to poo into that sandbed and break it in gently. If you've used dry rock, remember that live rock is live all the way through to its heart, with little bacteria. Right now your new rock is live only on the surface, and most is still dead and useless. A few more weeks will let that bacteria go on penetrating and multiplying---above all do not push a new tank. Start with the inverts, which don't poo much, and quarantine your first fish for four weeks before you allow a fish in there to add to the tank's burden.
Remember forever: if your tank starts going really wonky and the alkalinity is headed south or the tank smells, get all the fish out first, and all the inverts if it's really headed in a bad direction: this lets the bacteria sort out their problem and handle the load before the fish get back in there. Always have enough salt in house to set up a qt, and always have a spare tank that you could press into service: it can live in your closet until needed for qt, but don't get caught helpless to do what will save your investment. Protect your bacteria! Never put in an antibiotic (translation: kills bacteria) or copper treatment into your tank. Your bacterial colony is your prize possession: on it, and on its good health, all your pretty reef depends. Every decision you make about your tank has to be: bacteria first and foremost! You can lose a fish and come back; but if you lose those bacteria, you're hosed.
Likewise, if you're a fish-only, bacteria still matter. Your filter-cleaning creates a bit of feast and famine for the bacteria in your rock and sand, and your bioballs, and filter pads and wherever. Understand that. If you can back up your filter with live rock, sand, and, if possible, a sizeable fuge to hold green plants and sand and more rock and a population of copepods, your fish will likely benefit from the stray pods and your water certainly will. Keeping your alkalinity in the comfort zone will mean fish with good slime coats, and that means fish that aren't easy prey for parasites and disease or wound infection.
Hope this ramble helps: it's really all one topic---and I hope it helps make it clear that it really is all interconnected. Get it set up right, get it stable, get it cycled, and then take care of it as if it's a living thing---because it is.