live rock

[goodoleboyz250]

ok i just got live rock in from marine depot live and the box didnt have any water in it.is it always like that?that and could u use a air stone to help circulate water during the curing period?and also one more question.I have always used purfied water and mixed it with salt but it gets old buying water all the time when u can get it for free so i bought stress coat from api, how good does it work and how much should i use per gallon of water?

 

[purplegorilla]

Do not use tap water..Save yourself the hassle and buy a RO water filter from EBay for 100 bucks shipped.

 

[george]

Stress Coat is not good for saltwater applications. It has aloe in it and will drive skimmers nuts.

 

[dannybradley]

Return or throw away the Stess Coat. I have many beefs with that slime.

1. The sliminess of the product comes from a food additive, not aloe vera, to make you think their is a lot of aloe in it. It just makes the product heavy and hard to dilute.
2. It breaks up the chloramine (NCl3) bond by neutalizing the 3 chloride ions, freeing the nitrogen, which quickly bonds with hydrogen, creating free toxic NH3.
3. It is an ammy based dechlorinator, and will ruin organic absorbtion resins, purigen namely, but also carbon to a high degree.

Use Seachem Prime of Kent Ammonia Detox. They are both hydrosulfite based, and are very effecting in breaking down and neutralzing chloramine. Prime is 2.5 the concentration of Ammonia Detox, but for you purist, Ammonia Detox has no stress aids in it.

Tap water is okay for predator and some community tank applications, just be ready for lots of algae, diatoms, and cyanobacteria. Your grazers will love you for it. I actually ran a rock only tap water tank and switched out rocks from that to my display tank for my tangs/angels to graze on.

 

[roland jacques]

I agree buy a RODI unitdepending on how much water you intend on using would determine weather to buy a cheep one or not.

Danny, we dont have chloramine in the ATL area water. (that I no of) water aurthority uses chlorine.

 

[dannybradley]

According to http://www.atlantawatershed.org">www.atlantawatershed.org</a>, you are correct. Thank you for the correction.

I'd also like to add, not everyone can just run out an buy and R/O unit. The guy has like 3 rocks in a 20 gallon tank(no offense intended, we all start somewhere) and is asking a water dechlorinator question. Even a cheap R/O is going to double the startup cost of the tank. We need more information on what he intends to do before we tell him to just buy the unit, hook up the unit, run the unit, don't get impatient and forget the unit is running, buy a mop, mop up the water, buy a float valve and trashcan.

As for selecting a unit, if that's what he's looking for, I'd go with a Kent Deion 200. Unlike R/O, there's no waste water, and no startup impure water. The first few gallons that come out of R/O after each start are impure, do the the loosening of particles, which makes topping off with one silly. Yes DI comes at a higher cost per gallon, but it's easier to run, maintain, and does 200gpd pure out of the box. And once he gets his feet wet with the unit, he can reorder bulk mixed bed resin and easily refill carts at an even lower cost.

So for a better answer, GOODOLEBOYZ250, what are you planning for this tank?

 

[goodoleboyz250]

well its a 10 gallon tank and i plan on making it a reef tank but im just going slow trying to learn as i go.i dont want to put a whole bunch of corals and such in there and then lose everything cause i didnt know what i was doing.then once i learn alot more and have a little money saved i plan on gettin maybe a 29 gallon biocube and transferring everything.i didnt know what to do with the water and my local pet store said it would work and they never had a problem out of it.but i want to do the smartest thing i dont want to start out on the wrong foot.

 

[piznac]

1. Yes live rock typically comes not submerged in water,. there are very few places that do that.

2. You could use an airstone to circulate as long as that is enough circulation for nothing to be "not getting flow".

3... well this one is the trick,. Im kinda a noob myself,. and I chose RO water. I choose that because I don't want to worry about it. ,..

Honestly a 10 gallon is a rather small tank to start with,. and trying to keep the water paramters correct are going to be difficult at best. And I would suggest going very easy on your livestock and the rate you accumulate them.

As far as the stress coat stuff,. Im not very familar with it,.. and I dont use any additives in my tank(not yet ) ,. so honestly I dont know.