"Big Habeeb" wrote in message ps.com...
I think I was able to find my answers on the live rock - gotta get the
thing up and running with sal****er first. So can the sand handle
having freshwater put onto it and then salt added, or is that the same
kind of scenario?

All living critters in a reef tank will die in freshwater pretty quickly.
They will also die without water pretty quickly, but some of them
can survive in moist environment in some rock crevices, so
live rock is shipped without water, and what dies, it dies...
What survives the trip starts growing in your tank.

The sand bottom of the tank is done in couple different ways.
Also, what people call "live sand" could be quite different
depending who do you talk...
Some LFS sell "live sand" in plastic bag in moist state...
This is not what I would call live sand - this is rather wet sand.
It will have some bacteria left on the sand, but no living
creatures which could be beneficial in the reef tank: mini stars,
crustaceans, micro snails, etc.. For such animals to be present
in the live sand you need to fly it from the reef on the airplane.
Exactly like live rock is shipped. Day or two out of the ocean.
Not longer...

How is the "live sand" in the plastic bag made?
It is dead sand, sterilized to not stink, then a bacteria starter
is added and the bag is sealed. You pay big bugs for a wet
sand which you can make yourself at home buing some dry
playsand in Home Depot and a small bottle of bacteria starter.

So the order would be this way:
You make up sal****er in a clean, plastic bucket or two.
Let it stand until everything is mixed well and not cloudy (overnight).
You make enough water to cover the sand... lets say 10 gallons.
You put a layer of dry sand on the bottom of the tank...
Using known technique from freshwater tanks you place
a dinner plate or a foil bag on the surface of the sand and
pour water in the tank to not disturb sand too much...

If you are going with REAL live sand layer on top of the
dry sand as a seeding method, now you would put a layer
of live sand. Also try to disturb the sand as little as possible.

Then you prepare more water and add untill the tank is
maybe 70% full... You need room for the live rock volume.

Before you add live rock you keep the tank with just sand
and water for couple of days to make sand settle a bit.

If your dry sand was not clean and have a lots of organic
debris you will observe quite a big ammonia spike now...
Wait for adding rock until ammonia be not detectable.

Then you can add live rock, do landscaping and top off
the rest of the sal****er to make the tank full.

At this moment you should have no fish, no invertebrates,
espiecially corals in the tank... You are expecting huge
ammonia spikes before the tank will complete nitrogen cycle.

Depending of the quality of the rock, the tank will cycle
sooner or later. If you have rock shipped to your home
dirrectly you will expect more dead animals on the rocks,
so you will have to wait longer for the tank to cycle.
If you buy already cured rock in the local store, bring
it quickly to your tank the die-off will be minimal and
in most cases you will not see ammonia spike at all...

Tank at this level, with bare-bone live rock, no fish, should
be your first goal. This will keep you busy for weeks...

In the meantime, buy a good book and read it cover to
cover before you buy your tank, lights and equipment...
What you buy STRONGLY depends on what you want to
keep in your tank... what type of corals, what types of fish.