Went to Home Depot, I think I did well. And one or two more n00b questions...

[Corn-Picker]

I got a 50 pound bag of Tropical Play Sand. It says it's Silica free so I think it's the right stuff. It says "NOT RECOMMENDED FOR AQUARIUM USE" on the bag but I'm guessing that's either a CYA or profit motivated move.

I also got a 33 pound "Meadow Stone" patio stone for $2.33. $2.33 for 33 pounds is a little cheaper than the $5.99/lb the LFS is charging for lace rock ;) I also got a few small "corral stone" edging stones. I should have about 45 pounds of rock for my 29 gallon aquarium.

45 lbs of lace Rock and 30 pounds of Aragonite sand would have cost me $329 at the LFS. I spent $9.79 at Home Depot. :eek:

The next order of business is to make my patio stones look like they belong underwater. I plan to drill a few holes and bust up the patio stones a little, so they don't look manmade.

Question #1. My All Glass (that's the brand name) aquarium really doesn't need any extra bracing? 30-40 pounds of sand, 45 pounds of rock, and 29 gallons of water seems like a lot of weight for a piece of glass. That's about 300 pounds by my calculations... Also, the "Patio Stone" is a very dense stone, it's only about 8" by 8" in area, and it weighs 33 pounds.

Question #2. Wha's the minimum amount of Live Rock I need to seed my other rocks I bought at Home Depot? The LFS charge $6.99/lb for live rock, so if I can get away with 2-3 pounds that would be great. I understand this may make my lace rock take longer to colonize, but that's ok.

Also, can I break live rock up with a chisel? If my LFS only has a big chunk of live rock, can I break it into four or fice smaller pieces? I would like to break the big rock into smaller pieces so that I can get faster colonization of my lace rock.

Thanks a lot for your time everyone. I plan to do a full writeup with lots of pictures. By a full writeup I mean from step one, finding a place for my tank and everything. When I get it all done I'll make it available as a webpage for viewing or Word document for downloading. One thing I've noticed when looking for saltwater info is that the info is scattered, there's no single throrough tutorial anywhere.

[OrionGirl]

Not sure about the patio stone. If it is really dense, it's not going to be ideal for the tank. The sand sounds good.

Nope, the tank does not need bracing. I promise you--I have about 80 pounds of rock, who knows how much wood, and 30+ gallons of water in a 40 with no problems. Make sure it's level, and the rock should be distributed well. If you want, you can cut some egg crate to cover the bottom, and this will help distribute the weight through out more evenly.

I would seed with about 25% live rock--get really good stuff, and have patience.

You can break up the LR, but you'll be killing off quite a bit of the beneficial bacteria that are on the inside, as well as potentially breakin gup corals on the exterior. Not saying not to do it, just go with caution.

Looking forward to pics!

[dethjam316]

in my 20g, i used about 80% dead, porous rock, and 20% live rock. i always meant to add more, but $6.99/lb for rock, live or not, isn't a glamorous purchase, so i always put it off. so i'm being patient with it. but...in just 5 months since set up, all of the "dead" rock is showing patches of corraline growth, so i'm pretty pleased.

[Corn-Picker]

Originally posted by dethjam316
in my 20g, i used about 80% dead, porous rock, and 20% live rock. i always meant to add more, but $6.99/lb for rock, live or not, isn't a glamorous purchase, so i always put it off. so i'm being patient with it. but...in just 5 months since set up, all of the "dead" rock is showing patches of corraline growth, so i'm pretty pleased.

Thanks :) I'm definitely going to check the landscaping places in my area to see what the least dense/most porous type of rock they have is. Do you remember what kind of rock you got? The stuff I bought at Home Depot is too dense, so I have to buy something else. The cool thing about Home Depot screwups is that they cost less than $5 :)

[BrianH]

You could also order from gulf-view (https://www.gulf-view.com/pricelist.html) . The enclosed link will bring you to their price list. You can get the Premium Coraline rock for a few cents under $5.00 per pound delivered to your door.

Brian

[Corn-Picker]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I can get live rock for $3.75-$4.00 (including shipping) from here (http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?siteid=24&pCatId=397)

If I go to a landscaping place, I'm hoping to get 30-40 pounds for $10 or less :)