On the rocks or straight up?

TideNumOne · Sep 17, 2018

Hello,

I am setting up my first saltwater tank (after lots of freshwater over the last 40 years)...and will be doing it with a BioCube LED 32 Gallon.

My question tonight is about setting up the rocks:

Should I use “egg creates” under the rocks or place them directly on the glass?
Should I put the rocks in first and then the sand or the sand then the rocks?

Thank you,
Jonathan

saltyfilmfolks · Sep 17, 2018

Either way actually works. And folks do both.

If you egg crate , sand last.
If you don’t egg crate , sand first.

Basically just stability in the structure.

Retro Reefer · Sep 17, 2018

Welcome to R2R! I just put down my substrate and sit rocks on top of that..

BootyPup · Sep 17, 2018

Hey, and welcome to the forum! The BioCube 32 is a nice choice to start, I personally started with the BioCube 29.
Now, as @saltyfilmfolks said, people do both, but when I setup my tank, I went with what @Retro Reefer said and I put my sand in, then my rocks, and pushed them down into the sand, mainly because I have a pistol shrimp and I knew I wanted one so I decided to make the rockwork stable.

Sailingeric · Sep 17, 2018

Some fish burrow, I would put rock and sand so the rock does not fall and squish your fishy.

Dom · Sep 17, 2018

+1

I do sand first for rock work stability.

TideNumOne · Sep 17, 2018

Yes - that was my biggest concern, the pancake fish. Is there a reason not to use the egg crate? For under $20 if their is any benefit, I would think it would be worth the effort.

BootyPup · Sep 17, 2018

TideNumOne said:
Yes - that was my biggest concern, the pancake fish. Is there a reason not to use the egg crate? For under $20 if their is any benefit, I would think it would be worth the effort.

I mean, the only negative I could think is perhaps some kind of fish, inverts or shrimp could get stuck in or around it if they happen to inhabit that area. But it is a far fetched idea, and plenty of people use egg crate with no problems.
If you think it is the right choice, go for it!

saltyfilmfolks · Sep 17, 2018

TideNumOne said:
Yes - that was my biggest concern, the pancake fish. Is there a reason not to use the egg crate? For under $20 if their is any benefit, I would think it would be worth the effort.

You can make more interesting aqua scapes if you use it. Large flat base basically. I actually have a combo.

MamaLovesHerReefTank · Sep 17, 2018

This is not from experience as I've never used it, just advice and reasoning I've read in this forum. Some say that the egg crate can hold a lot of detritus, therefore causing issues in the tank. I'm sure there are many that have used it with no ill effects. Personally, I glue/epoxy all my rocks for stability, put them in the tank and then add sand. I push the sand around the base of the rocks, flow and inhabitants do the rest getting it into the nooks and crannies.

hdsoftail1065 · Sep 17, 2018

Nice tank choice, we run one as well. I placed the sand in first and worked the rock down to the bottom. After doing that I have to agree with everyone, rock first then sand. To this day the rock doesn't seem to stable sitting on the sand.

BedrockIOMC · Sep 20, 2018

You can check out my BioCube 32 on my build thread below and I didn't use egg create under mine and I put sand in then my rock. I also only have 2 rocks glue only because their set in a weird way. I wanted to be able to move them if I needed or take them out if I ever need to.

TideNumOne · Sep 20, 2018

BedrockIOMC - thank you, great looking tank!!!

BedrockIOMC · Sep 24, 2018

TideNumOne said:
BedrockIOMC - thank you, great looking tank!!!

Thank you very much

RichtheReefer21 · Sep 24, 2018

Welcome to R2R... You will have plenty of help and support with that BioCube here, very popular Nano tank on r2r forums.

Agree with everything above. That's the beauty of this hobby, so many ways to do it and its all up to u.

Get a Build thread started so we can follow along with your progress!
Best of luck!

Breadman03 · Sep 24, 2018

TideNumOne said:
BedrockIOMC - thank you, great looking tank!!!

A great feature of this forum is the ability to tag members with an "@", such as @TideNumOne. I didn't use egg crate, but many people do. Enjoy the reef!

fabutahoun · Sep 24, 2018

I would put rock first on both ways, I think your are better off without using egg crate, I am worried that it will become a dead zone where detritus may start to accumulate.