Est cost of tranfering from fw to sw

Dry dead aragonite sand is fine, the bagged 'live' sand is mostly dead by the time you get it. A couple cups of sand out of established system will help speed up yours in establishing life though. Same formula as determining FW sand.

HOB's and canisters work in SW, sumps are the best way to go though. You may want to ditch some of the media you may use in FW though like bioballs. Just need pad, floss or sponge to catch what your skimmer doesn't get, and maybe some purigen or gfo to help with water quality.

Lights are T5HO or NO? 110g is around 24" tall? NO won't let you do much coral wise, maybe some very easy low light softies on the top of your rock like xenia and gsp, even 3 HO's is going to limit what corals you can keep, HO's could be supplemented later on by adding a couple high quality led strips, but NO is a total lost cause IMO.

Circulation pumps I'd do 2 atleast 1250gph+ each.

Rock, 1lbs-1.5lbs per gallon is a good target point. I like marcorocks.com for dry rock, my last order was a hair over $2 a lbs with shipping vs $4lbs + tax at LFS. Live rock for seeding in LFS will usually cost $5-6 lbs. Bulkreefsupply.com sometimes has good deals on dry rock as well.

Other equipment you'll need, refractometer($25-$40) Basic SW master test kit to start with ($20) salt 150-200g mix(40-50) cheap pump to mix salt(marineland maxi jet $14) the circulation pumps for your tank (40-50ea) HOB Skimmer you'll want once you start adding corals($125-225) RODI unit $160-200, dry arag sand $20ish per 30-40lbs bag.

You can do what I'm doing and build the tank slowly. I've currently got just the sand and some dead base rock in my tank. I'll be adding water now that I have salt for it, and will let the tank run on its own while I go about gathering the other things I need. This way when I finally get to the fish I am completely ready for it and already cycled and everything.

Initial startup costs are high, but like said above you can do it slowly, and if you shop around and keep an eye out places like craigslist deals can be had, I sometimes see people selling dead rock from tanks they broke down cheap like $1 a lbs.

With no skimmer, weekly yes, you can go longer with a skimmer but at the cost of adding more chemicals to help replace the lost minerals like calcium and stronium that get used by corals. 20-30% is the size of the change you want. Buying water from the LFS is ok but keep in mind they probably charge between 40 cents upto $1 a gallon, your own RODI will be cheaper in the long run.

Those first couple of pieces look kinda scary, not sure of what all is on them, but looks like a lot of things I wouldn't want in my tank.

Im assuming those were harvested recently.


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AquaticAustin said:

is this florida rock good? http://orlando.craigslist.org/for/3347580917.html

Click to expand...

Looks like base rock in the pics, fine for seeding, wouldn't fill the tank with it though, its heavier and less porous then the typical stuff you would want to mostly use. You could use that as your base level then stack more porous type dry rocks on top http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-reef-saver-dry-aquarium-live-rock.html this would be how you'd want the majority of your rock to look.