Howdy

[reeffreak]

Assuming you have a refugium then no,its good to have some live rock in it as well.I would put the ugliest dead rock in the fuge and put the good stuff in the display.Don't forget to save some space for macroalgae in the fuge.

[Bifferwine]

Hi and welcome!

Apparently I've come late to this thread and I feel as though all my thunder has been stolen .

Like others have said, you are in the right place for anything having to do with saltwater tanks, 1 to 2 lbs of live rock per gallon, seed your dead "live" rock with real live rock, wait until ammonia and nitrites hit zero, then do water changes to bring nitrates close to zero. Don't add a fish until the cycle is complete.

[Altohombre]

some good starter fish after you cycled is always clownfish. They have a lot of character and everyone knows what they are. I started my tank with two.

[Buzzbomb]

Originally Posted by reeffreak

Assuming you have a refugium then no,its good to have some live rock in it as well.I would put the ugliest dead rock in the fuge and put the good stuff in the display.Don't forget to save some space for macroalgae in the fuge.

I'm sorry - what is macroalgae? Is that something that can be purchased?

[RyanG]

Yes macro algae can be purchased, here read this link it explains it better than I can.

Macroalgae: Types and Benefits to Saltwater Aquariums

[fatman]

Macro algae in appearance are the salt water equivalent of plants. Microalgae in salt water tanks are the green, brown and red growth that can appear anywhere in your tank and on your glass. Consider it like undesirable grass that is somewhat hard to keep away and even harder to get rid of. The amount of live rock needed depends on whether you have a sand bed of some depth, whether or not you have a skimmer or mechanical filtration and how heavily you stock your tank with fish, invertebrates and coral. Consider the live rock and live sand as sewage processing plants that turn undesirables organics into tolerable organics and a skimmer as a remover of organics. Plus people in general think a certain portion of a tanks volume filled with coral seems appropriate after it has become fashionable to create aquascapes with the live rock. There are no real magic formulas or percentages as it all depends mostly on your husbandry techniques and you ability to limit your tank occupants in number to what your ever growing and changing system can handle. In the beginning a lot of people do not have the large sums of money needed to buy a lot of rock and sand and therefore use less but do frequent partial water changes to keep there tank pollutants at acceptable levels for fish and or hardy corals.

[jhnrb]

welcome to the site. I have live rock in both the main tank and in the refugium which is on a photoperiod opposite the main tank system. keep us posted and good luck with your system.

[Keaton]

Hey Buzz welcome to LR!! I've got a similar setup to yours...75g non-drilled. I've got 60lbs. of Austrailian spaghetti rock (clean) and 30 pounds of cured fiji live rock. I'm gonna basicly seed my clean rock and turn it into LR (or attempt to anyway) and cycle my tank all in one shot. You may want to consider that (if you have the patience) as it was much cheaper than 90lbs of LR. Anyway good luck with your tank!

[ravenfan8705]

Hi Buzz and welcome to LR. It's very slow start before you can add fish, I'm going through it right now. But once everything is right and you add fish it will be so much better. It's worth the wait.

[Buzzbomb]

Just kind of an update - seems like cycling is complete (or close enough to add fish), my nitrates were the last part of that, and afer a couple of water changes, everything seems in balance. Got a LOT of that brown algae crap, but the "cleaning crew" took care of that. Added a foxface and a bar goby, the foxface is kind of skiddish, but the bar goby is having a blast.

Lately I've noticed a lot more "life" out of my live rock. Last night I noticed multiple "tentacles" which I've looked up and appear to be very large bristleworms...I say large as in I saw easily more than 9 inches sticking out of one rock, and couldn't even see the other end. Are these guys anything to worry about?

Also, any suggestions for my next fish? My kids won't stop harping on me about the stinking "Nemo and Dory fish" so I may do that - any warnings moving forward, or suggestions on very colorful, pretty, and non agressive fish that are easy for a noob like myself?

PS - I took some pictures...will post when I get home tonight.