seeding dsb

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pace507

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Jan 8, 2003
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www.myfishtanks.com
I am moving from 60 gallon tank to 110 gallon tank. I have CC in my 60, I bought 200 pounds of carib sand for the new tank. What is the best way to get the sand live. I read about putting the CC in panyhose and laying it on top of sand?? If so whats the best way to do so. Should I buy some sand bed infauna also to get things going good?? I doubt I have very many creatures in the CC. I have had the tank up for over a year now (60 gallon).

Let me know

Thanks
 
If you're buying more liverock, I wouldn't worry. The critters from the live rock will move into the sand as soon as they can. Using the nylon of CC works for bacteria, but not for the larger critters. You can get an activiation kit to get a wider variety, or if you're not getting new LR. Your existing LR should have a small population, too, which will help.
 
I have a little bit of live rock, I will be getting more but not for a while, want to make sure everything is up and running again. I read the article from fish whisper about seeding DSB with the nylon technique. I guess I will try that for the bacteria, etc. I will look into some sandbed critters to add to the sand. Any recommendations of places to get it?? I originally was gonna put CC at the bottom and slowly fill tank day by day, but I figured the CC will rise to the top and defeat the purpose of DSB.
 
The CC wouldn't stay at the bottom, and underneath all the sand, the bacteria and good stuff would die off anyway.

I haven't ordered any of the kits, but I have heard good things about the GARF kits. Apparently they come with a variety of good critters. It's www.garf.com

I think FFExpress.com has an activator kit as well, but can't comment on ordering from them.
 
I remember seeing a activator kit on ffexpress, but cant find it, I am still looking on their site.

As far as live rock, I bought mine locally but wanting 100+ pounds I will look to the internet. Are there any good places/bad places to get live rock?? Also is the cheaper stuff really bad compared to the expensive stuff. What benefits come with expensive stuff, more critters, etc??
 
It depends. Some places sell base rock--it's biologically active, but doesn't have a huge variety of critters. It's usually cheaper, but not really pretty. Pay attention to where it's from--there's lots of florida aquacultured stuff out there that is nice, and usually cheaper then the Tonga or Fiji rock.

As for where to order from...Latayzo ordered some that has tons of nice stuff on it--it's pretty choice looking.

I know it costs more, but I prefer to buy locally so I can pick out the pieces and shapes I want. Also, by having the LFS cycle it, I reduce the odds of picking up something nasty. Of course--it's still a good idea to quarantine! We learned that lesson with our first mantis shrimp!
 
Thanks for the info, I might just to the LFS thing, your right about choosing what you want rather than getting stuff that you dont know about. Also the rock is in one tank and into another in less than an hour. I might just do that, add a chunk at a time. I will find out where the rock is fun. I have heard about the mantis shrimps glad I havent run into one. Anything to look for for them?? Other than using quartine. I have a quarantine tank, so by getting little at a time I will be able to use that rather than a huge shipment.

Thanks
 
We heard our mantis long before we saw it. It would make loud clicking noises at night. It was in the invert tank, and ended up getting into the overflow box, where it was effectively trapped. We left it in there--it lived for about a year, eating whatever got swept out of the main tank. We pulled it out twice to clean the overflow (scary, but no problems. Savage little ******* gave the tongues we used a sound thrashing!) For some reason, the water level got high enough so the overflow was no longer skimming, and the mantis escaped into the main tank. We quickly located his burrow, and pulled the rock out. He scurried into a hole, so we held the rock over a spare bucket and filled the hole with FW. He came out, and we fed him to our lion fish. Decided the overflow wasn't secure enough to prevent him from getting out and threatening the corals, crabs, shrimps, and mandarin goby in the invert tank.

Best advice I can give you is to watch the rock carefully, and look for a pair of eye stalks sticking out of any holes. All of them I've seen have been bright lime green, with burrows close to the bottom of the rock.
 
:) Thanks for the info, I will try to look for them. My LFS sells cultured live rock, I am assuming its normal live rock?? The fish store is called ATM might have heard of them www.acrylicaquariums.com, mainly make custom tanks, but was in there had a huge bin of live rock lots of snails and creatures in there. They sell rock for $5 a pound. place I bought my rock from before went out of business, so I will probably check this place out. They have a huge tank with 2 nurse sharks about 3-4ft long, awesome display. Their website doesnt show much but the store is awsome for fish. Anyways, is cultured live rock good, I forgot to ask where they get it from.

Thanks for you info
 
Cultured live rock means that it's rock that was put in the sea (or a large SW system) and sat there for a while, allowing critters, algae, ect to grow on it, then packed up and shipped off for sale. Basically, they're saying a reef wasn't hacked into chunks to provide you with the live rock. It's a good thing. :)

Cultured is different from cured...Cured live rock shouldn't have any die off of organisms. Most rock you order off the net will have some die off and an accompanying spike in ammonia and nitrites.
 
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