Using sand and rock direct from the sea for 1st cycle. Good / Bad?. What to expect?

[smellzlikefish]

Hello, Thanks everybody. First things first, I live in the Philippines. Unless I am using dynamite to collect the rock, there is no ban against collecting the rock. I also own a dive shop here so I am conscience about collecting the rock. And finally there are no LFS in this country that sell cured rock.

I am new to the hobby so I appreciate if you guys keep that in mind.

My tank is 7ft x 21"w x 34"h. With 100 gallon sump, refuge, led lights, monster skimmer, etc. I bought the tank second hand as a complete set up.

I will be using NSW for all my water changes. ( Dive Shop ). I will be collecting my NSW in clean enviroments away from industry & pollution. I will also be getting the sand and rocks from the cleanest areas possible.

Because this is the first cycle / attempt at a tank I do have a few questions that I am having a hard time getting clear answers for.

In the future this will be a reef & fish tank. More emphasis will be given to the fish.

Here we go,,,

I was planning on adding the water, rock, and sand at the same time. Good idea? / Bad idea?

Rock questions.

I have already started to make a pile of cool rocks somewhere on the house reef. ( Dive Shop ). The rocks don't have alot of coraline on them, more algae. They are very porus ranging in color from light brown "sandy" to dark brownish / black. I tried to get a range of differnt rocks.

My question is, once I pull them out of the sea, what should I do to them before putting them in the tank?

I am concerned about hitch hikers that could cause problems for either corals or the fish down the road.

I was planning on scrubbing them. The problem is I don't really know what I want to knock off the rock and what I want to keep. I know coraline is a keeper. But, what kind of stuff don't I want? Should I try to remove the algae? How hard should I be scrubbing?.

I've read about dipping them in fresh water to kill the bad guys. Is that a good idea with super fresh rock? ( The rocks will not be out of water for more than 5 minutes ) I certainly would not want to kill all the good stuff by doing that. If that works and is necessary, please give me some instructions how to do that.

I've also heard that because its a brand new cycle there will such a spike in the tank and that will more than likely kill the bad guys. Any thoughts about that? Keep in mind the LR and DSB, are both considered wild / fresh. I think that will increase the spike if I am not mistaken.

I have quite an elaborate aquascaping plan, so at this moment, I'm not concerned with the aquascaping, The reason for the rock now is to help with the cycle and also to start curing the rock, so that when I start my aquascaping it's already in the curing process. I am thinking of adding about 300 pound of rock at this time, even though in the future with my minimilist aquascaping plan, I am sure I will use less than that down the road.

Are there actual benefits to having more LR than is necessary for the initial cycle? I was thinking this would also allow me more choices in the rocks that I will use in my aquascaping. What I don't use I will toss back into the sea.

It is really hard to find tips and advice about harvesting your own live rock. I guess most people do not have that luxury. I would really appreciate any advice you can offer. If there is something that I am not considering, or there are major problems with this idea, please let me know.

Questions about sand:

I Plan to have a 5" sand bed, I found a caculator online that told me I will need 485 ls of dry sand for a 5" SB. I have no idea how much that will be using wet sand, but it gives you guys an idea of the amount of sand we are talking about.

How can I test the sand to make sure it will be aquarium safe? I have read that not all sands will be beneficial.

A local reef guy told me there is a way to test the sand by putting into a tube and putting vinegar in the tube and watching for bubbles? I don't really undertstand what he was talking about? Any thoughts about that?

Once I collect the sand is there anything that I can do to remove any of the bad things that could be there in the sand? Or is it throw it in the tank as is, fresh from the sea?

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of mixing black and white sand together to get that salt and pepper look.

There are islands around that have very black volcanic sand. I've been advised by a local reef guy that I have to be more cautious in choosing the black sand. He made a comment about running a magnet over the sand, but again, I wasn't really following the reasoning behind it. Any thoughts about that?

Thanks again for taking the time to clarify a few things for me.

I will be posting pics as soon as I have something to take pics of.

You can check out my other thread about planning this scorpion tank here,

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...ht=help+plan+a

Thanks again,

Shawn

( I hope I don't get beat up for wanting to get rock from the sea,, please remember there are no LFS or things like that here )

[ivans75]

sounds like a big plan

If I were you I'll try for smaller project first. Get a 60 liter tank (15g) and fill some sand from your local unpoluted beach and few live rocks. Get a top box filter and fill it with some crushed corals you can find laying in the water. Preferably those are submerged in water at all time (you need to swim and dive a little). Oh btw you might wanna get sands from the submerged area too, go to about a knee or bit more high area on LOW tide (that way that sand is made sure to be submerged under water at all time)

And I dont think u should worry too much about the critter, there is no such thing as a bad critter, everything has a purpose in nature

And I think you can use the sea water from there too.

I dont believe there is "right or wrong" way of doing it as long as you got the concept right I dont think you'd find anything bad.

[ivans75]

and dont forget to setup a hang on skimmer on that little tank should u wanna try. cheers

[Chris27]

Take the rock directly from the ocean to the tank, ensuring it's not exposed to air for more then a few min. Covering it with wet paper, or simply carrying it in buckets full of water is just fine. As for the critters, it's part of the gamble, but I promise you'll have more good then bad especially in your location.

As for the sand, gather it from the ocean floor, and bring it right to the tank, it'll be fine. The stuff you've read about using vinegar is to distinguish from arragonite sand (ocean) from silicate (sandbox sand).

[ivans75]

actually i also wanna do a similar project. I live in Jakarta with easy access to thousand islands (scattered small islands north of Jakarta) planning to snorkle out in one of the island and gather some live rocks and sands for my next tank.

It would be good if you can update your project.

[tmz]

Killing the hitchhikers you don't wan't via freshwater dip , drying , etc. will kill the rock and and die off of desirable organisms will be significant leading to high ammonia and require curing.The same is is true for the sand. .

If you do decide to kill the rock ,a bleach bath and rinse followed by an acid bath to rid it of any undesirable organisms and decaying organics will be needed.

If the rock is from clean water , I would keep it wet and alive ; use it as is after brushing off any decaying sponge or other obvious undesirable material and deal with hitchhiker problems, case by case.

[smellzlikefish]

Hello guys thanks for the replies.

I modified my plumbing a little bit yesterday. I think I made some good changes that will be beneficial in the future.

Maybe tomorrow or the next day I will get my rocks / sand and water.

I will not be dipping either the rocks or the sand in fresh water.

I am wondering about scrubbing the rocks. I was looking closely at some of them today and I didnt see much obvious dead stuff. Not that much black stuff.

I did notice that in areas where the water doesnt flow over the rock, there is a lot of dark green / brownish algae looking stuff, do you think that's good stuff or bad stuff?

Is "scrubbing" the rock really as easy as "scrubbing" the rock? Or is that one of those terms that could be interpreted as something else, ( like cooking the rock for example ) I was planning on using a stiff brush, just like the one you would use to scrub your washroom or kitchen.

What am I going to need to scrub the rocks?

Quesion about cleaning the sand?

Should I get my sand near to the reef or should I get my sand away from the reef?

Will it be beneficial if I rinse out the sand in salt water? Today I put some sand into a bucket and swished the sand around and it made the water milky. I could clean out the sand if it would be beneficial, but I really don't want to loose any good stuff by doing that. What do you guys think?

[sjwitt]

If you're taking rock and sand from the ocean I would do nothing to it. Put it into the tank as it is. You wouldn't need to 'cure' it because if you take it straight in it shouldn't see any die off. You may see a little cycle but you kind of have the best scenario coming straight from the natural environment. The rest of us have to deal with die off because of shipping and handling that causes die off.

I would only take what you plan to use and if you do take some that you DON'T use do NOT put it back into the ocean. Give it to another reefer. You should never return anything that you've removed so as to not introduce something into the ocean that shouldn't be there.

The sand will be cloudy at first but it will settle. Add rock first so it has a firm foundation on the bottom of the tank. Then, add some of the saltwater, then put the sand down around the rock using a cup to carefully and slowly 'pour' it where you want. Put it all in at the same time and let it settle with pumps and circulation on. You don't need lights at this point. I'd wait a week or two and then test. I would also 'feed' the tank a little pinch of flake every day to keep the bacteria and little organisms alive. (I wouldn't be at all surprised if you don't see any spike in ammonia or nitrite.) Then after test for nitrite and ammonia are zero for a week or so, I would add some invertebrates like shrimp or emerald crabs/hermit crabs or whatever you like. See how the tank responds to the increased bioload and go from there.

As I wrote, this is what I would do.

[doctorgori]

Don't ya'll just envy the OP?, clean tropical waters to go collecting in:
no oil spills, no major rivers dumping thousand of square miles of farm runoff into the gulf, no floating masses of plastic bottles...

... happy reefing my friend across the world...happy reefing

[smellzlikefish]

Hello sjwitt, thanks for the reply

Unfortunately there are not a lot of reefers here that I could give the unused rock to once I do my aquascaping.

Excellent point about not putting the unused rock into the sea. However, what if i left the unused rock bake in the tropical sun for a month or two before putting it back.

Thanks again

Shawn

[smellzlikefish]

hello doctorgori, thanks for the message.

I am not familiar with "OP",,,,

Considering I grew up in the Canadian praries and would have to cross the rocky mountains to get to the sea. ( 26 hours straight drive ),,,, yeah,,, its really cool to have white sands and crystal water right out the door, plus it hardly ever snows here in the Philippines, haha

Thanks again

Shawn

[smellzlikefish]

Hello everyone.

I am sure I know the answer to this question, but I just want to confirm.

Given the fact that I am new to the hobby, I do not want to make any assumptions.

Is too much coraline a bad thing? ( again I think I know the answer, just wanted to get some feedback ) There are some rocks that have so much coraline / clams / etc, that i can not even see the rock. I guess that would be a good thing, but it may be one of those situations where too much of a good thing could turn out to be a bad thing.

Thanks for the input

Shawn