More questions

[pgr11]

I said I would have more. First let me thank little fish and the others with my last post, about the sump and live rock. to refresh I bought a used 40 gal tank with a current orbit light fixture 1 850 powerhead, heater and controler, 50lb of rock that has been out of the water for months. I am going to set up a reef tank. I purchased the aqua c remora protein skimmer with maxijet 1200, pre skimmer, additional 1050 power head, and coralife lunar aqualight t5 ho fixture with 4 bulbs. From what I have read this light should allow me to grow most coral. Am I correct in my thinking? Also little fish and someone else mentioned I could use my old rock and just seed it with some fresh live rock and cycle the tank. I want to start this process but want to know if I need to do anything special to the old rock before hand or during the cycle process. I was in a fs not in my town but a ways away and stoped in to ask some questions, they acted like doing this is a real pain and I should stsrt off with new rock, but my local shop said just use some new with the old. so is there anything special i should do? I hope im not bothering anybody with these questions but I want to do this right and the more i know the better. I also bought a book to help me. Thanks in advance

 

[Jmck]

IF the lighting fixture has reflectors it will be enough to keep everything, but only just imo.

you dont have to do anything special to the rock, put it in and put at least one peice of live rock and all rock will come alive.

 

[pgr11]

It does indeed have reflectors.

 

[Jmck]

The I would think you would be fine for your tank. Sps would be ok, but im not sure if it is 100% enough for SPS, but everything else will grow with no problems.

:)

 

[marcah]

as far as the rock is concerned just throw the old and new in with a powerhead that breaks the surface of the water and throw your heater in and let the rock cycle away.. no need for a light at this point.. the light should be fine for most corals.. the tank 48 inch or 36?

 

[pgr11]

Well I was told when I bought it that it was a 40 gal tall. I just measured it and it is 30x12x22. When I look up those measurements I come up with everything from 37-40 so now im not so sure it a true 40 gal. But the width is 30"

 

[marcah]

thought I would ask makes a big difference on lighting.. my 45 is a cube like yours. 27 inch tall.. over 18 inch you are pushing the realm of what t-5s can do... down the road to get sps you might want to look into getting a mh pendant or a good set of LED's, for now though you can keep alot of lps and softs.. well IMO anyway :D

 

[Salty B]

L X W X H= 7920 cubic inches. 7920 X .00433= 34.2936 gallons. Actually its a little less than that because thats with outside dimentions.

 

[pgr11]

well looks like its a little smaller than expected. It was only 50 bucks and came with the stand heater lights 1 powerhead and a 5 gal of salt so i dont think i did so bad, lesson learned though. Dont trust what they say check yourself. I will eventually go larger but feel this is a good place to start. My wife wants the tank also but doesn't want it to lg. we have the room to go larger so we will do just in time. This is a good start, and if I can get this going and going well then I will upgrade in size. Any other thoughts on the lights? Should I get the old rock wet and try scrubing it ?

 

[marcah]

nope no need to scrub it.. just throw it together with powerhead and heater and let it go ..:D as far as lights I wouldnt change them until you decide what kind of corals you want to keep.. you will be able to keep quite a few with the lighting you have now..

 

[pgr11]

How many pounds of live rock should i get to reseed the old rock?

 

[Salty B]

It only takes a couple. If you can, get a cup of sand out of an established tank too.

 

[chuck78]

Marcah's right.....as long as the old rock never had any exposure to copper, mix it all up and cycle away. I mixed 85 lbs of old with 100 lbs + 30lbs of lace rock to cycle my 150.