starting a new tank

[Tacoyaki]

Originally Posted by RuGlu6

If you nuke the rocks you may be safe, however if it is wet you never know what survived and these guys can be very resilient.

so for base rock you just wash it off in tap water then put it in the tank or?

[RuGlu6]

Originally Posted by Tacoyaki

so for base rock you just wash it off in tap water then put it in the tank or?

yes for dry base rock that is the way.
J&L has nice shapes, this is very important step in seting up your tank. This is what you will be looking at. Go to J&L and see what they done with two "mountains and space in between" design.
What you can do is get a rectangular sheet size of your tank, and try to get some nicely shaped dry rock at J&L and see what you can get in terms of good design of your land scape.
Might be hard to get it the same way though when you get home.LOL,

[Tacoyaki]

ill check it out tomorrow thanks for the great advice =], btw im contemplating with getting a heater. Since it's summer and it gets pretty hot will i need a heater? I haven't installed one in the tank but i've been closely watching the water temp. During the day it goes into the 28-30c and at night it falls down to 24-26. Would this be good enough? or should I go for a heater?

[Lampshade]

That much opf a temprature swing could hurt a lot. 2-3degree's F is enough to cause chaos in some tanks. heaters are one of the the cheapest part of your tank, and also one of the easiest ways to lose everything(I've had it happen )and throw a $10 walmart mini fan on the top that turns on when your lights turn on.

You've been given great advice about the baserock, a clean start would be great. With the cost down now it's a cheap way to start aswell.

[Tacoyaki]

oh okay ill invest in that then

[Aquattro]

From an alternate viewpoint, I would never use dry rock myself. I've bought over 500 pounds of live rock, and only once got a worm I had to get rid of. I removed the rock and put it in the garden.
The diversity of life that comes on live rock is to me, one of the best reasons to use it. The brittle stars, mysids, the snails and crabs, etc, all make for a reef. Unless you have a source for all this variety off the rock, you could be missing a lot, or at least wait a very long time for it to get introduced to the tank on something else.
Starting with dry rock, IMO, leaves you with rock that is colonized with some bacteria for filtration, but it isn't live rock. Just my opinion....

[Dez]

I went with a bit of a combo. I got live rock from many sources and made a few custom pieces out of cement and I have a couple of pieces of dry tuffa rock. I think I sort of got the best of both worlds. I was VERY selective in picking my live rock from sources that I trust (no aptasia, nuisance algae, mantis shrimp etc....) Hope this helps.