Working on new build now. Picture below taken today. This time I am choosing to do everything very methodical/slow. I have decide on mixed reef, standard 180G (60x30x24). Like several people who jumped in on this posting, I have been out of the hobby for many years and only used live rock in the past, so much to learn. I plan to do bactiera in a bottle and then seed later with some live. Still debating best live seed approach, but considering ideas already mentioned plus buy some live, cook 6-8 weeks, and then add. The idea is to just add the bacteria diversity. I plan to do all of this fallow by not having a fish in the house. LOL
Some learnings on the dry rock so far...
1. Consider using CaribSea shelf rock for your base rock...same flat bottom, but really affordable compared to Marcorock. Obviously for small tanks it probably makes more sense to buy pieces on Marco base rock even though it costs more. I ended up buying all my rock from Saltwater Aquarium with mix of brands on non-base rock. My experience was great on the rock I purchased....very little breakage and the base/shelf rock was awesome. I found different brands of all the non-base rocks was essentially the same. As you can see in my pic, the material was the same (good luck picking out what is what after mixing it together) and probably mined in the same place in Florida. Maybe Marco was slightly better, but that could just be box to box variability. On the non-base rock It really comes down to learning how to break the rock correctly with chisel. BRS videos noted below helps with that too.
2. Watch BRS videos...first one says two part bad epoxy, mortar good and second one says two part good and mortar not as good. I have found the truth lies in the middle. Mortar on the bottom where amount/volume and real strength is needed. Two-part connecting rock as as you move up wher space is tighter. In both approaches small batches at a time. What makes videos worth watching is all the the technique stuff. You can tell these guys have done this many times and all the little "how tos" are really helpful. I am using their general approach...thick superglue/insta-set to start, mortar/ two part next, and then finish with very thin and rock sand to cover mortar/two part epoxy. For mortar I used the Marco stuff. If you have done any drywall repair getting the consistency right is not very hard (thin enough to work/some grit/fairly smooth but not runny and sticks together). BTW, I found some u-tube videos to just be wrong on E-marco mortar prep! Follow Marco instructions in terms of prep of liquid portion of the mortar. Although, I tried wetting rock surface as they suggest and that did not seem to be very helpful. Plus I was worried about running out of the liquid to add to dry mix. Given the wide range of two-part cost/price I am trying three...Two Little FIshes, SeaChem, Instant Ocean. What you see in pic are just the first two. Instant Ocean coming next few days.
In the pic you see I have used 2/3rds big bottle of BRS thick supperglue, one small bottle and a tube (also experimenting there). One tip on this...I refill small bottle from big bottle. Easier to work with. You just need to cut tip of small bottle a bit and not let it get plugged. I have now used all of the Marco mortar pail dry and do have maybe 10-15% remaining of liquid part. I have used two bottles insta-set and two 4 oz. sticks of TLF and SeaChem (each). Have used very little thin superglue at this point...just enough to test sand/thin superglue approach on the base rock where I used mortar. Worked great with two applications and canned air to remove loose sand between, per BRS video. Good luck!!
