Aquascaping

[crazymman]

Okay so I have these ugly lava looking rocks in my tank which im starting to hate more and more everyday. Plus the 2 peices at the ends are so big i cant really do anything with them and they take up alot of room. So im thinking of taking all of them out, rescaping with the fiji that I have and slowly adding more fiji until I get the amount that I want. So my questions are, Is it gonna cause any problems moving all these rocks around with my fish and corals in the tank? Also those lava rocks make up most of the rock weight. Is the tank gonna be okay with out them for a while? I can buy some more rock this friday when I get paid. Heres some pics of how the tank looks right now.

 

[BL1]

When you take them out, be careful not to stir up your sand bed. It's probably best that you're taking out the lava rock, it can leach metals into your water. Is the Fiji rock you're getting live or dry? If it's live you're going to want to cure it first so it doesn't cause a cycle in the tank with your fish and inverts.
Other than that, your fish should be ok with the rocks being moved around

 

[crazymman]

I was gonna buy live rock but only add like 5 or 10 pounds every two weeks or so. Do you think that would be okay?

 

[BL1]

possibly, depends how much is dead on it

 

[crazymman]

The place i was gonna get the rock has had the same rock for about 4 years he says. And its really local so i wouldnt have to have it shipped. Am I still gonna have die off even if i have it back in the tank within an hour or two?

 

[crazymman]

It would just go from his tank into a bag and right into my tank.

 

[BL1]

no, if you keep it submerged in SW when you transport it there should be little if any die off

 

[crazymman]

Ok thats what i was thinking. Thanks BL1, Im gonna get started on getting these rocks out of here. I'll post a pic when i have them out.

 

[BL1]

Sweet, good luck, can't wait to see how it turns out!

 

[wontonflip]

You don't really need all your new rock to be live; You can save some and get some base rock. The live rock in the tank now will seed it :)

 

[crazymman]

Yea i was thinking about that too. Im kinda worried now cause alot of stuff got stirred up in the water. Ive got the skimmer on wet skimming pretty hard.

 

[crazymman]

Wow my tank looks so empty now. Gotta make some new water now too to make up for the space the rocks took up.

 

[VAreef]

Like Wonton said you don't need all live rock. You can get 25lbs of dry rock from Marco rocks for 60 bucks. Thats alot cheaper than buying all live rock which in 3 months you won't tell the differance. I wouldn't worry to much about stirring it up a little bit. Your gonna cloudy it up some when moving around rocks which isn't much to worry about.

 

[crazymman]

Ok its starting to clear up and as you can see Ive got some rock to buy but i like it better already. I hated that other rock.

 

[Bifferwine]

It's good that you got the lava rock out, anyways. Lava rock can be bad for inverts.

 

[yote]

Your tank will thank you later on for removing that lava rock.
If you buy live rock from your LFS,just make sure they bag it so the rock stays wet on the way home.
And using base rock to fill in will save you a lot of cash.Plus like Va said,in a few months time you wont be able to tell the difference.

 

[crazymman]

Yea I think I'll do that. Cant wait to go to my LFS. Having to wait til friday is gonna suck. Now Ive gotta look at as many tanks as I can to get a good idea on how Im gonna layout the new rock.

 

[crazymman]

Also i wanna add some more sand. Will it be ok to add like another 20 pounds at the same time?

 

[VAreef]

You can add some more sand it will of course cloud things up again but it will clear up. I only have sand in my DT for looks. Serves no other real purpose.

 

[yote]

+1 Va