Brand New with 110 Gallon

[RoryJ]

I'm no genius when it comes to aquariums, but I started my aquarium with all dry base rock (1/3 the price of live), live sand (agra alive), and a canister filter. I used a bottle of bio spira and a couple of damsel to cycle it. If your on a budget and have some patients it works well. If your looking to do some serious corals then the canister won't work, but it seems ok for my Fowler setup. Yea live rock is nice and instant gratification, but you never know when your getting on it. I'm very happy with the money I saved and everything is running great for me.

Thanks for the reply, with the dry rock did you have to do anything to it prior to placing it into the tank? And could i cycle tank without the use of fish by going this route?

 

[Duke4Life]

There are many ways to cycle fishless, dose pure ammonia, a raw shrimp, adding bottled bacteria, that's just a few of the more common.

 

[RoryJ]

There are many ways to cycle fishless, dose pure ammonia, a raw shrimp, adding bottled bacteria, that's just a few of the more common.

If I were to do dry rock/live sand as a startup any suggestions?

 

[Duke4Life]

Have any others in the hobby close? Get a cup full of their sand and skip the live (save the $$$). Or get some bottled bacteria and dose ammonia. Dosing ammonia allows you 2 100% know you're right when testing since you dosed ammonia and everything should breakdown from there.

 

[Duke4Life]

Setup a good qt system, most invaluable thing you can do.

 

[Brew12]

Canister filters are not as forgiving in salt as they are in fresh water. You rock sand is for the most part doing what the fluval does. Saying that I have used them and do like them. I would use it for more of polishing the water than pure filtration.

They can be very effective to polish the water, but I wouldn't recommend polishing water in salt water. Many salt water fish will benefit by having the plankton floating around in the water.

 

[Brew12]

If I were to do dry rock/live sand as a startup any suggestions?

I did dry rock and live sand along with a bottle of Biospira in a 120g tank. I probably could have done without the live sand. I wouldn't recommend doing it, but my setup would have been safe for fish starting on day 2. I waited a few weeks to be on the safe side.

 

[Joey waid]

They can be very effective to polish the water, but I wouldn't recommend polishing water in salt water. Many salt water fish will benefit by having the plankton floating around in the water.

Ok

 

[Mr_Banana_Pants]

Thanks for the reply, with the dry rock did you have to do anything to it prior to placing it into the tank? And could i cycle tank without the use of fish by going this route?

All I did you the dry rock was wash it in some Rodi water just to remove the fines... like any rock or ceramic it creates alot of fines during shipping hitting together... I put clowns aND blue damsels in the tank one hour after the bio spira and they are still doing great... put a cow fish in a week later and he is still happy and healthy

 

[james lance]

If I was you I would get about 110 lb of dry sand and about 60 or 80 pounds of bulk reef supply pukani dry rock and a bacteria additive like doctor Tim's one and only then light feeding for a few weeks . This will save you a lot of money and you will not introduce any pests.