I bought aragamax live sand, two bags, and three 30 lb bags of dry sand and combined, (be sure to rinse dry sand for like... ever.) I then added them to the tank with one ten pound piece of liverock, a heater, about twenty gallons of water in a 90 gal tank, a powerhead, and a 20gph fountain pump pumping water through a one gallon plastic jug full of bio balls with a small hole in bottom.
I had a fully seated sand bed in a month, with brine, mysis, and hundreds of colonies of things swimming around. I left this set up for six months until I had the equipment ready for my 90 to be set up right. When I set it up I added 90 lbs of liverock and had it cured and cylcled completely in about three weeks.
This was the way I did it. It was expensive. I would recommend you using dry sand. Aragonite sugar sand for surface area. Then seed it with some sand from someone else. Just make sure you're not bringing anything that you don't want... like ich. The whole bed should seed in no time.
Good Luck
Mike
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This all started with a ten gallon and two clowns.
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