Plan so far.....

[Lorna]

Okay here's the plan so far:

75g glass tank *undrilled*
75lbs live sand on top of 100lbs of Southdown Play sand
75lbs live rock (more to be added at later date to bring up to 150lbs)
Aqua C-Remora pro protein skimmer with mag 3 pump & prefilter box
48" 4x130 w 50/50 power compact lights


Livestock plans to be added gradually over 12 months:
2 percula clowns
2 bangaii cardinals or
1 royal gramma or
2 neon cleaner gobies or
Firefish

Clean-up crew: Any suggestions on how many of each of these one would need?

blue legged hermit crabs
peppermint shrimp
cleaner shrimp
cerith snails
nassarius snails
turbo snails
brittle stars

Suggestions and or opinions greatly appreciated.... regarding any part of this

 

[1979camaro]

sounds fine so far

Livestock plans to be added gradually over 12 months:
2 percula clowns - good choice

2 bangaii cardinals or
1 royal gramma or
2 neon cleaner gobies or
Firefish
- any of these would be a good choice. if that is all you plan to add to your tank (the 2 percs and 1 or 2 other fish) you will be way understocked, but thats fine


Clean-up crew: Any suggestions on how many of each of these one would need?

blue legged hermit crabs - i would start with 15
peppermint shrimp - don't do any cleanup but you could have a good number in a 75
cleaner shrimp - ditto
cerith snails - 10
nassarius snails - 10
turbo snails - 1 or 2 max
brittle stars - 1
i would add to this list 10 margarita snails, might also consider an emerald mithrax crab

 

[Lorna]

Thanks for the input, that is exactly the advice I was looking for. Now I just need to get this plan in place. I went to the local lfs and he basically told me I was crazy to put together the dsb and live rock filtration that I was just asking for problems. He swore I should not put down any substrate with live rock and only use a wet/dry trickle filter system complete with bio balls. The guy was an elderly gentleman who I believe has forgotten what reading is and how to apply newer methods to his hobby. The really sad thing is, he has great looking livestock and some incredible live rock that he is selling for $12/lb. I think I will continue to look.

 

[1979camaro]

well, just because he has a different philosophy doesn't make him wrong. there are a lot of people running succesful tanks in a lot of different ways

no reason not to buy from him either as i see it, though $12/# is pretty spendy even for really nice LR

 

[Lorna]

He has really nice fish. Yes I will probably buy from him, though I am reluctant to pay that price for rock. He was very abrasive and no help at all when asking questions and frankly his attitude totally put me off. Of course my husband thought that as he runs the store he is the authority on the subject. He will just take their advice in the store as gospel and not do any leg work or research. hmmmm. Glad this is me putting this together and not him.

 

[KahluaZzZ]

If it's the only fish store with good LR, maybe you could just buy couple of pounds. I have like 6 pounds of incredible LR ( 12 CDN $/pound + 15 % tax ) and it's purple everywhere and have lot of kelp on it..well let's say had 'cause with tang is an herbivore. Anyways, since i've put those rocks in my tank i have coralline growing fast and everywhere. In a month it's incredible how it was boosted with the addition of this very pricey LR.

 

[S.Reef]

I would not do the southbend play sand. We had some in our reef tank, and it killed the edges of some brains and frogspawns.

 

[S.Reef]

PS. Also very hard to clean...I would stick with a sand specifically for the aquarium.

 

[Lorna]

PS. Also very hard to clean...I would stick with a sand specifically for the aquarium.

If that is so then why do a lot of other forums recommend using this as it is an oolitic calcium carbonate substrate of almost identical make up which comes from the carribean?
see http://www.inlandreef.com/Testing/SandPhotos.html

I have had others tell me that even using quickcrete play sand is okay though personally I think I am better off using a calcium carbonate based sand as opposed to silca which has it's own myriad of problems.