live rock / setup

[bksmith]

I've been thinking/planning a salt water tank for the past year now (I currently have a 135 Brackish) and now ready to go (just ordered the tank). My planned setup up is a 92G corner RR tank with a 54G sump underneath. My plans are/were to put @100 lbs base rock in the sump (with a 6" dsb) and 50 lbs base + 75-100 lbs premium live rock in the display tank (with a 4" dsb).

Currently, I need some help with my live rock/base rock plan. My initial though was to buy the base rock now and put it in the wet/dry sump under my brackish tank (salinity @ 1.015) for a couple of months to start the bacteria process. Through on-line research I figured Tufa rock would be best since I don't care about how it looks and am only interested in filtration. However, reading a bunch of posts over at wetwebmedia has me questioning whether this plan is worth it. I do want to save the couple of hundred bucks but more importantly I want to have a great reef tank!

So, two questions:
1) What do you think of my plan? Comments/suggestions?
2) What is the cheapest way to get base tufa rock? (I found a link for feller stone on-line but am not sure about it.)

Also, I might as well throw in that I do not plan on using a skimmer. I have been on this site for a long time (even though I only show like 4 posts!) and believe that in the long run I do not need one.

Thanks.

[BrianH]

Why don't you try that stone yard on Rt. 46 (I think its' called fairfield stone) for some lace rock?

Brian

[votek]

This might be very hard, but if you have any friends that do SW tanks, see if they can get you some of their base rock.

I know my friend had some that was in his 55, and its loaded with copepods, algae, and brustle worms, which all seem to have really helped the tank.

So if you can find a friend with some that will give it up, go for it I say.