First forays...

[BlueAbyss]

So, I was in Prince Albert yesterday and picked up a few (extremely overpriced) items at Petland.

Who knew they sold live rock? I spent a lot of money for what I got, but it's a start.

I picked up a bucket of Instant Ocean. Cost me 100 bucks. Ouch. I should have saved my money and had the H2Ocean Pro that I originally wanted shipped (it would have cost the same), but I was there, it was there... ya know. I wanted to get started anyhow.

I paid $50 for a 20 lb bag of Seachem Tidal Aragonite. Nice looking sand, dead, but nice.

I also bought around 2.7 kg of live rock (at $19.78 a kg). Not overly nice live rock, but decent shapes and they will make for a good base. There is some purple coralline growth on both of them (not on the side that I chose to show of course), and I ended up with a hitchhiker blue hermit of some kind. Tiny little guy, I noticed his shell in the leftover water from the rock.

So I emptied the tetra tank (they moved into an old 15 gallon I had kicking about), cleaned it, and added distilled water, salt, a HOB filter (150 gph), and a Rio pump that's meant for a skimmer but helped mix the salt.

I haven't added the substrate because I haven't decided if this tank is temporary or not. I may use this as my contest tank, and take more time to build the custom tank I've been planning for past couple months... I have issues with the design of that system.

Anyhow, a pic now that the water has cleared... excuse the ghetto cover and the lack of decent lights. The Rio has been removed and replaced with a second HOB filter, for around 25x turnover (conservative estimate).

[Myka]

Ouch, those are some steep prices!!! Nice shaped rock though. Don't worry about buying "dead" sand, as the "live" stuff in the bag is essentially dead as well, just a well marketed scheme if you ask me.

[mark]

so now it starts.

Prices aren't that far off. In Edmonton LR goes for $10/pound

[LeeR]

oh man!... and i thought it was bad in vernon!

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

The live rock is actually reasonably priced considering the extra shipping since it works out to $8.99/lb. Most places in the Lower Mainland sell their live rock at a retail price of $7.99+ (J&L's starts at $8.49/lb for small quantities) so that's actually pretty good pricing. The salt is way cheaper here though.

[BlueAbyss]

Well, the salt would actually have been cheaper, but it was there and so was the rock... I wanted to get started since it was all right there I could actually have ordered it from Saskatoon, it would have come in on the bus. I don't know what shipping would cost, but the salt would be 64.99 for Instant Ocean... not bad at all.

[BlueAbyss]

Yeah the rock wasn't a bad price. Just everything else And there is no life on the rock either. Just rock, bacteria, and some purple coralline.

I have added substrate and rescaped a little. It's a good thing I picked the pieces of rock that I got, when stacked you can't tell there is more than one piece...

[Myka]

If you're wanting more rock I will have some for sale soon here if you're down in the Saskatoon area, and I will sell it to you for a lot less than $10/lb and most of it has lots of life and color.

[LeeR]

thats a sweet aqua scape.