What would it take to make this a SW tank? Am I ready to go down this road?

greech said:
Seaclones are known to be difficult. Never owned one but most skimmers you'll want to leave the air valve wide open and the water height adjustment open as well. Let it run like that for a few days and slowly adjust the water level back up until you get a dark foam in the cup. There are mods out there on that skimmer.
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I had no idea Seaclones were problematic. I'll look through the forums for mods. My big complaint at the moment is the noise. It's ridiculously loud. I can't imagine what it sounds like inside of the tank. It's also generating tons of air bubbles in the tank. I don't know if that's good or bad or indifferent.
 
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Also, what's the best way to add the LR. Do I need to drip acclimate first, or just splish splash and be on my way?
 
Splish splash is just fine. If the rock you buy happens to be fully cured, keep it in water on the way home and add it to the tank. If fully cured, the rock will not need to be cycled. That's doesn't mean you can add livestock right away but if you are confident that the rock is cured (i.e., right out a mature tank with life in it), adding ammonia to force a cycle is pointless.
 
How can I be sure the rock is cured? When I went to the LFS the other day the LR they were selling for $6/lb or was fully cured. At least that's what they said. I've read that you can tell by the smell but I don't know if there's anything to test beyond that. Just see if it smells bad?
 
If you get any spikes then it isn't cured. If stuff is dying on it then it is uncured and you'll basically be at some random point in the cycling process.
 
If you don't trust the source or see it come out of a stocked tank yourself, then just assume that it isn't fully cured and test your water as you would for any cycle. If it ends up being cured any ammonia you introduce should be converted fairly quickly.

Smell is not a good enough indicator.
 
It came out of a lightly stocked tank. There was 1 fish and a snail maybe in a 75g tank. Apparently it was originally taken from some of the other tanks in the store. I got 20 lbs dry, 10 lbs live. The live is somewhat covered in purple algae. The store told me that is good. I don't know if that's true or not. The rock came with at least one hitch hiker - a mushroom of some sort. It has crawled into the rock to hide at this point.
 
So right now, the tank looks like this -
IMG_20130211_172212_858.jpg


I am curious what this is. The lady at the LFS said it's a mushroom. I know absolutely nothing about it. It just came along on the rock -
IMG_20130211_173240_331.jpg


And the other rock had this on it that looks like little flowers. No idea what it is. I'm completely fascinated though -
IMG_20130211_173248_229.jpg
 
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