# New guy,New setup.Need help...



## Rfraser (Mar 8, 2007)

New guy to site,you guys are great, after reading here for a couple of days I feel like I ate my ice cream to fast,BRAIN FREEZE!!. I had a 55gal(fresh) tank for about 6 years then when my 5-9"-11" ID sharks completely destroyed my tank, I give them to a local aquarium buddy who had a larger tank and shut my tank down. I always wanted a sw tank so now 10 years later here I am. I have a few start up questions and your help would be greatly appreciated.

1-My tank is just far enough from the wall for my hoses to clear with out touching the wall(background already on) so my skimmer will have to go on the end of the tank is there any potential problem you can see with this 
setup.

2-How do you place your live rock without touching the back glass of the tank and yet still keep your main reef slope forward.

3-I may have made my first screwup already. The LPS that has a lot of nice saltwater setups and supplies told me to use crushed coral for my substrate and the concises on this site seems to be sand. Should I throw away my $75 worth of cc and switch to sand.

I am in no hurry to get fish in this tank, I want to take my time and do it right. The tank has been up and running with the cc for a week and I will have 60lbs of live rock tomorrow. This is my learning tank and I would like to accomplish what ever is possiple in this tank coral,annomies,fish with the hope of gaining enough knowledge for a 150-175gal setup in my basement reckroom 3-4 years from now.

Appreciate any help,Thanks,Rob.


----------



## Andre (Feb 19, 2007)

yeah i would go with live sand and do it right from the start if i were you especially with dreams of a future reef. Bottom line, there is not a good way to stack rock, you just have to keep twisting and turning tell it gets stable, at least that is how i do it, i know some use an underwater adhesive that is not toxic to fish.


----------



## caferacermike (Oct 3, 2006)

I knew one person that poured in several pounds of aragonite and mixed it with the CC to fill in the pores left by the large substrate. I can't recommend it myself but I'd hate to be out $75 as well. You realize the problem with CC is it's large size allows big waste collection. 

You'll have to play for hours with the rock to get it the way you want. Then wait 4 months, rip it all out and do it again. Then 3 weeks later visit a reefer and get really mad at the way you put your rocks and do it all again.

There is not a problem (other then running a HOT skimmer [Please no Prizms]) with running your skimemr on one end of the tank as long as you have plenty of flow int he tank to scoot the poo that direction.


----------



## Rfraser (Mar 8, 2007)

Thanks for the replies. I guess all cc must be the same , for whats its worth my cc almost looks like sand its crushed so fine. Oh welll.Thanks,Rob.


----------



## Derek-M (Dec 11, 2006)

Rfraser said:


> Thanks for the replies. I guess all cc must be the same , for whats its worth my cc almost looks like sand its crushed so fine. Oh welll.Thanks,Rob.


Coral chips are about 5-6mm so it may be sand that you have


----------



## caferacermike (Oct 3, 2006)

You may have what they call an Oolite sand. It is crushed coral that is mechanically crushed to sand grains. If it looks like grains of sand you are allright, it's the crushed coral that resembles crushed shells that is the problem stuff. Your LFS may just call it different because of a location dialect. Check out the caribsea website for information.


----------

