# Starting up with All dry rock



## Neebz (Dec 10, 2011)

I'm setting up my tank (red sea max) with ALL dry rock I got from bulk reef supply next week. Going to use dr. Tim's one and only to set up the cycling.

Besides bacteria dry rock appears to be missing a couple of things:

1. Coralline algae

Does anyone have this product or similar product as indopacific sea farms does not ship to Canada.

For those who dont know what this is and are curious check out the following link http://www.ipsf.com/corallinebooster.html

2. Beneficial hitch hikers
It will be some time before I actually put live stock in. Was wondering if it was beneficial to put Copepods in, to kind of seed the aquarium. Will they reproduce even if I don't put phyto algae in?

Anything else anyone suggests i stock to make up for the lack of biodiversity in dry rock (except for live rock or sand)

Another question I had is on quarantine, I was thinking about putting a dymax iq3 aquarium in the cabinet. Is a quarantine even necessary? Is coral dip or other similar chemicals good enough?

Thanks for your help

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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Just grab a few live rock frags to seed your dry rock.


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## Chris S (Dec 19, 2007)

As soon as you introduce some coral, or fish, you will have the critters and algae you desire.


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## wildexpressions (May 3, 2010)

what they said

Because of our prices on dead rock we sell a large amount and as a result I have a large amount of experience in setting up a tank with it.

A good aquarium shop will give you a bag with some live sand from their system. I do it for free but we are a mom and pop's kind of shop. In the city shops will charge you a couple of bucks for it. All it should take is a good handful to seed your tank. 

When I first started the salt water section in the shop I collected sand from everyone I knew. Now two years later I have an overwhelming number of life forms in my sand. Lately I've experienced a massive baby brittle star explosion which is pretty cool. Some are getting pretty big. 

If you use Dr Tims be sure to feed the bacteria or it will die and it will die pretty quickly. Follow his instructions. Personally I use Sally Jo's method (garf.org bulletproof tank) but Dr Tims works as well. Sally Jo's is free though.

Pretty much everyone makes a coraline accelerator and in our experience they all work. They each seem to produce a slightly different color of coraline. Purple Up is very popular as is Purple Tech. They are essentially bottles of amino acids, carbs, HFFA's, etc. and you can find them at any well stocked retailer. Do not forget to place a piece of rock with some good coraline growth on it in the tank to seed it. It will really jump start the process.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Yes, I'd forgotten about Live Sand. My deep sandbed is full of all kinds of critters.

I don't think the packaged "Live Sand" sold in stores are of much use though.


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## Tim (Dec 11, 2011)

Neebz said:


> I'm setting up my tank (red sea max) with ALL dry rock I got from bulk reef supply next week. Going to use dr. Tim's one and only to set up the cycling.
> 
> Besides bacteria dry rock appears to be missing a couple of things:
> 
> ...


I was in the exact same situation as you at the beginning of November. Sounds to me like you are in a hurry. Trust me, don't be. I saw a great post by someone saying the only thing that happens in a hurry with salt water tanks is a disater LOL.

I have included some links with some great info from very experienced people. Have a read, some pretty awesome information.

Corraline, we touched on that in another post. There would be no difference scraping off corraline from an existing live rock. I put my live rock (with corraline) in the tank second week in November and it is now growing nicely on the existing rock. It may take a little time to spread around but thats part of the fun (for me)

Hitchikers:

1) Some existing live rock rubble and some live sand from someone's tank. The bagged live sand from the stores is a waste of cash (that came from 3 different people at different big als stores who I trust).
2) When (if) you set up a refugium, some chaeto will usually carry a few pods amongst other critters.

Don't forget though that the more sources you get live stuff from, the greater the chance of introducing a pest. According to some, half the fun is trying to get rid of the undesireables 

Now as for quarantine:
Yes. Absolutely do it. For everything. Go look up the things people have gone through after introducing a disease or parasite to their tank, and in some cases people have lost all of their livestock. In other cases you can't treat the tank with say copper or prazi because it whacks other critters in your tank.

http://www.reefland.com/forum/marin...-treatment/19255-fish-quarantine-process.html

And I would also consider a fresh water dip using methlyne blue.
http://www.reefland.com/forum/marin...tment/18887-freshwater-dip-marine-fishes.html

I did it for the first time a little while ago. It was a bit unnerving as I didn't want to hurt my new fish but I was worried about nothing. It was more stressful for me rather than the fish.


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## wildexpressions (May 3, 2010)

solarz said:


> Yes, I'd forgotten about Live Sand. My deep sandbed is full of all kinds of critters.
> 
> I don't think the packaged "Live Sand" sold in stores are of much use though.


I agree and have read numerous reviews and statements by many trustworthy people that say the same. That bagged live sand sold by some of the substrate companies is not worth the effort. Live sand out of a store aquarium on the other hand is an entirely different thing.


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## Tim (Dec 11, 2011)

wildexpressions said:


> I agree and have read numerous reviews and statements by many trustworthy people that say the same. That bagged live sand sold by some of the substrate companies is not worth the effort. Live sand out of a store aquarium on the other hand is an entirely different thing.


I get weird looks from stores when I try and score some sand. I even offered to pay for it and I think they thought I was nuts.


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## wildexpressions (May 3, 2010)

Tim said:


> I get weird looks from stores when I try and score some sand. I even offered to pay for it and I think they thought I was nuts.


lol

I'm country boy running a salt water shop in the boonies so I don't know how it works in the big city  I guess I could see a store, especially the bigger chains, having a policy of not doing if it for what ever reason but to not understand why I'd want it? lol I mean no insult but if a marine store didn't understand the reason for my requesting a handful of substrate from one of their established sumps or tanks I'd go find another store.

As mentioned I do it for free and I do it at least once a week for someone. A handful of my mature substrate will obviously contain a well established bacteria colony but it pretty much always contain various pods, baby serpent stars, various worms, various types of baby snails and any number of other little critters. It always goes with a warning about potential nasty hitch hikers but they are quite rare in my systems as I would expect them to be in any decent shop.

It is an excellent way to jump start a system and is generally far better then any bottled solution IMO.


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## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

If you're in the scarborough area you could swing by my house for some free sand and some cheato if needed. Don't mind at all helping out a fellow addict. The cheato I got from Alex is full of pods moving around.


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## Neebz (Dec 10, 2011)

Thanks for the advice. Also thanks for the offer alt - I think I may take u up on it once I get the equipment



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## altcharacter (Jan 10, 2011)

If you're interested Neebz, I also need to thin out a few frags like some GSP and a few xenia.


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## Neebz (Dec 10, 2011)

Thanks again alt. really appreciate it. Have spent a month researching and putting together a list of dry goods that I need (so I can pick them up on boxing day) - unfortunately already committed to spend a considerable sum (just with the red sea max and the vortex wave maker alone) - Haven't even started considering and factoring in live stock. 


Tim the articles you sent me were great. Thanks. Have to admit that the freshwater dip is very intimidating. Do you do that and the qt? Please tell me it's easier than it sounds in the article, lol

Also do u quarantine the cleanup crew as well? 

Thanks and merry christmas. 

Muneeb





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## J-P (Feb 27, 2011)

wildexpressions:

hey hey!! I didn't know you were on GTAA... I was the guy in Bancroft that posted on your site that I had finally found you.


Taking HWY2 from Belleville towards Trenton, how long would you estimate the drive is?


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## Tim (Dec 11, 2011)

Neebz said:


> Tim the articles you sent me were great. Thanks. Have to admit that the freshwater dip is very intimidating. Do you do that and the qt? Please tell me it's easier than it sounds in the article, lol


yes I did the FW dip with Methylene Blue then qt. I followed Lee's step's exactly. I bought 3 big plastic bowls and a seive from the local dollar store and used the lid from a cooking pot (don't say anything to my wife if you ever meet her LOL) to keep it covered. It is very simple.

I did a dry run the day before to see what I had to do and how much baking soda to add to get the PH up.

So just put the seive in bowl #1 and slowly pour in the fish with their bagged water. Put on the lid, lift it up hold it for a couple of seconds, then put the seive in bowl #2 (FW baking soda and Methylene Blue) check every 5 minutes, leave them in there for 1/2 an hour or if they get stressed out, when finished, dip them into bowl #3 to rinse them off (this has water from the QT tank), then left it out and gently place the seive into the QT tank and let the fish swim out. I then inspected the FW dip bowl for signs of parasites. I then fed them for a week and observed then I treated them for worms with prazipro.



Neebz said:


> Also do u quarantine the cleanup crew as well?


You shouldn't need to. When you are buying your CUC ask the fish store people if the filtration system for them is the same one as they are using for the fish. The ones at Big als North York and SUM use separate systems.

I bough my clean up crew the same time as I bought my chromis. The CUC went into the tank after doing the drip acclimation, and were alone in there for 4 weeks while the fish were in quarantine. I guess if they had been in the same system it would be possible for a parasite to come in on their shell or something. As an extra precaution, never pour in the fish store water into your tank.



Neebz said:


> Thanks and merry christmas.
> 
> Muneeb


And to you as well.

Here is another site to check out. It is huge. I have been visiting every day for 3 months and still come across tons of pages I haven't seen before lol.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/


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## Neebz (Dec 10, 2011)

Thanks Tim. Very helpful as always


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## Neebz (Dec 10, 2011)

Tim, if you are still looking - I did finally find it. Contact eco-reefer.com


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## Tim (Dec 11, 2011)

Just went to their site and all I see is rock and sand for sale and a few other things. Do you have to ask for it?


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## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

Do not know if you guys need it, but Aquatic Kingdom has a lot of Dry Rock for 1.99 and I think there are several pieces in the salt water will also go for 1.99

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## Tim (Dec 11, 2011)

Sig,

I will be in about a week or so. Getting all the stuff together for my refugium so I am going to need a bit of live rock. What I will need more of is some real live sand, not that useless "Live Sand" with water that sell in big als. I need critters in my sand like worms and pods 

I may have to beg for a cup of sand from your tank


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## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

you will be surprised, but I do not have any worms or critters in my sand. I have many ~ 80 or something snails which are cleaning the sand under surface and the top.
I running shallow bad ~ 1.5 - 2" and I always trying to kill all hitch hikers before they get to the tank. there are some creatures that just do not belong in an enclosed system and can become a problem. You can not even assume what crap you can get from the live rock and how miserable these hitch hikers can make your live
I also seen tanks are full of worms and it is ugly (my opinion)
Sorry man, can not give a sand from the tank, since I do not want to disturb it. Just 3 weeks ago I was giving ~ 120lbs of the sand from the running tank and nobody want it.

I am not a professional, but in my opinion Live sand definition can apply to the sand taken one hour ago from the ocean and "Live sand" from the tank is simply a dirty sand. 
Tank is small disclosed system and all dirt stays there in sand. This is the reason to avoid sand disturbance.
I swapped 3 tanks and I seen what you call "Live" sand. It is dirty and smally sand.
But again million people have million opinions and this is just mine, which is probably wrong
I am using these products to deworm and get a rid of unwanted life, when I bring home corals attached to the live rock.

http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/store_pages/product-info.php?product_ID=st-fworm

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