Edmonton Freshie walking the plank, Any advice to ease the wallet/headaches :)

[Aquattro]

Personally, 300 pounds of rock is way too much. I use 1/2 pound per gallon, I'm pretty successful with it. Lots of room for fish to swim, lots of space to mount corals, and I have no measurable NO3. I'm also not a fan of dry rock, but it is cheaper, so think about mixing it up. I'm never really sure what pests people are concerned with, I've used 500 pounds of real rock over my time in the hobby and once got a worm I didn't like, I just removed that rock. Any crab that comes with it is still in my tank. The loss of all the good stuff isn't worth worrying about the bad stuff (that you could never ever get).