new 20g and can't decide

[adidas]

Originally Posted by medic_eva

ya know what's sad? i went and saw someones tank one time and he had the white starboard in there (only i didn't know anything about it at the time), and i was looking at his tank, and like a total blonde (even though they are just highlights) i asked him, "Wow, how do you keep your sand so flat?!"
yah... classic eva.

classic...

LOL

[martym]

The tank is going to be mainly SPS, so a few snails hermits, ect. Thanks everyone, I'm going BB and loven' it.

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by Beverly

What kind of algae are you talking about?

Like the algea u get when u first start off. Canyo, turf, brown all that stuff.

[Johnny Reefer]

Originally Posted by Ryan

Like the algea u get when u first start off. Canyo, turf, brown all that stuff.

As long as your bio-load is low enough, those algae will eventually die off on their own anyway. So there is no need to clean the algae off in the first place.

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by Ryan

Like the algea u get when u first start off. Canyo, turf, brown all that stuff.

I get around having all that start up algae, as you call it, by not curing my rock in the display tank. Rather, I cure it in a smaller tank or rubbermaid container with heater, aeration and some NO lighting. During curing, I siphon out the bottom of the container/tank as well as give each rock a good swishing in changewater about once a week. This gets rid of all kinds of algae-producing crud from the rock. It's surprising all the crud that comes out during the following weeks when I siphon the bottom then swish the rock, almost as if it had never been done before

Once the rock is fully cured, I give it all one more swishing before transferring it to the display tank. After it's aquascaped in the display tank, swishing is not possible, so I turkey baste the rock the day before weekly water changes. Still, lots of crud comes out of the rock, and it is either sucked into mechanical filters or falls to the bottom of the BB tank.

On water change day, powerheads are turned off and the mechanical filters, in our case foams, are thoroughly cleaned in outgoing changewater. The bottom of the tank is siphoned of obvious crud. Then I baste under the rock structure to move the hidden crud to the back of the tank where it is siphoned out.

IME, if rock is cured in a separate container and swished regularly, the bioload is low in the display tank, and there are enough snails in your cleanup crew, there is almost no nuisance algae at all.

[martym]

Thank for the tip Beverly Over night I got a major cyno out break in my 10g. Hate that stuff. I is probably my fault , I was trying to feed my pepperment shrimp, (not easy to do with a turkey baster and small mysis shrimp )And it got out of control. Need to make a batch of water and give the tank a major cleaning. Anyway, thanks again everyone for the tips and advice.

[outtafocus]

It is always easier to add sand at a leter date if you dont like the bare bottom, than it is to remove sand once you have it in your tank.

Start bare then give it some time to decide.
My girlfriend hated the idea of bare bottom, then once she saw my bare bottom 10g she instantly changed her mind.

[Beverly]

Marty,

Instead of using a turkey baster to target feed your shrimp, use one of those small plastic baster-looking things that comes with Prime dechlorinator. One lfs uses one of these things to feed their tanks, but they look like good target feeders too.

[martym]

Awesome Beverly Thank you