Hello, new member here...

Hello to everyone. I'm returning to the hobby after many years away as my oldest son (10) has been begging for a "fish tank" for several years now. I picked up a 29g BioCube (used) and have ordered a RO/DI system and few necessities like a master test kit.


When I last had a tank about 8 years ago, DSB's and LR were all the rage. It appears that DSB's have sort of gone out of vogue (or at least with the nano tanks). Therefore, I am planning to put maybe a 1" deep bed of sand in the tank and then roughly 45lbs of rock. I have ordered 30lbs of base rock and plan to get the rest as Live Rock to seed it. My plan is to run the tank w/o bioballs and, rather, use a media rack to hold filter floss/carbon/purigen. The lights are CF bulbs (stock). No plans right now for a separate sump/fuge and/or skimmer. I may pick up a small skimmer later if necessary.


So, does that sound reasonable to everyone?


What sort of sand should I get and where to buy it?


Will the 30lbs base - to - 15lbs live rock ratio be sufficient to create biological filtration to add any livestock shortly after cycling?


Speaking of cycling...would it make sense to cycling the tank with only base rock and some dead cocktail shrimp (to kickstart the cycle)...then, after the cycle is complete, add Live Rock? Or, would it make more sense to cycle the tank with the Live Rock?


Thanks for any and all advice...

 

Thanks for the tips. Maybe I can persuade another hobbyist to give me a cup of live sand along with a little live rock rubble to seed my coralline algae on the base rock /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/smile.gif I'll have to get another 15lbs of base rock but I can pick that up locally pretty inexpensively. The 'plates' is interesting...I have never seen that before but it makes a ton of sense. I don't want hitchhikers (been through the mantis shrimp ordeal once...and that was enough!) so I certainly can see the benefits of what you're suggesting.

 

Thanks for the welcoming. I am pretty excited to introduce this hobby to my boys, I know how much pleasure I've gotten from it in the past. I think my first tank was a 40-ish gallon FOWLR with a hand-on CPR skimmer that evolved pretty rapidly into an in-wall 150g RR tank with a 55g sump, MH lamps, berlin skimmer, etc. etc. Then we moved to a new house and it had to come down. I set up a 75g reef that I had for another year or so until the kids came along and sucked up all my time. It's been about 6 or 7 years now and this 29g BioCube seemed like a good starter to get back in...and the boys wanted a tank in their bedroom so I wanted to keep it relatively compact. If I know myself at all, this tank will just be the "gateway" tank...