Adding live rock and sand
Once the water was at the correct temperature and salinity it was time to add the live rock and begin the aqauscaping
After looking around several local retailers and the internet I decided to contact an online dealer and discuss my requirements for live rock. I had decided upon 30kgs of good quality, cured fiji live rock for the 225 litres of actual tank before displacement, 1kg:7.5l. Many authorities recommend 1kg:10l so this should be OK. I had an idea of roughly what I wanted my rockscape to be like and had described this to the seller, he said he would try to match the size and shape of the pieces with what I had described.
The rock came a couple of days later in two large carboard boxes. I wasn't quite sure what to do at this stage so looked over each piece for obvious dead matter which I removed and then carefully placed the rock into the tank. On looking into the box I saw a little crab so popped him into the sump as I had heard crabs were not necessarily good news. I had also bought about 22kg of 1mm coral sand. This was washed repeatedly to remove the dust, grit and other bits and pieces. I used some to create a deep sand bed in the middle compartment of the sump, the remainder was to be used in the display tank to give me a reasonable depth of sand as I wanted to keep wrasse. I have detailed they way I did the aquascape here so will not go into it in detail on this page. Suffice to say I had a number of attempts and found the whole process quite enjoyable but frustrating. I had decided to leave the rockwork loose, not using any epo putty, egg crate or pegs to fix it in place. I am pleased about this as several months down the line I had to strip out a lot of the rock to catch a rogue fish. After several attempts with the aquascape I felt I had achieved pretty much what I wanted so I added the sand to make the substrate. I put the sand in last so the rock work was stable and couldn't be undermined. |