Buying Help Please

[troublemkr]

Buying Help
Okay, so first I am thinking about taking out my CC and puting in LS and LR. So here are my questions:
1) With LS...it is on sale here, 40lbs Natures Ocean Live Sand....good stuff???? Do all i need to do is put in just live sand, or mix the LS with other play sand? I dont get it.
2) 20-25 lbs LR, Aguacultered...is this a good thing, bad thing? What do i need to do with the LR?
3) The Rio Powerhead 1400, 375 gph just to get the current moving.....good idea?
4) The reef packages for sale....I cant decide what I want to evenutally get...i have a 44G corner tank... should I do the 20-55G package, the 30-90G package or the Big 20 +1 package. All this is so confusing, even with all the dang research I have done!
Answers dont need to be long and detailed, just a quick help lesson i suppose. And thanks for all the help!!!

 

[scubasteve]

Aquacultured LR just means they took inland rock, dropped it in the ocean for a few years and let everything grow on it. I'll be getting that for my tank. I don't want people tearing up the reef just so i can have some rock. The sand depends on what kind of bed you want. You going for a deep sand bed (dsb), shallow sand bed (ssb), or something else? For circulation, I would definitely get something that will allow for variable flow (preferably a ph that will actually rotate the head as opposed to a wavemaker that simply turns the ph off and on). Variable flow is very important to corals and often overlooked. This is assuming you are making a reef tank tank and not a FOWLR.

[hr]
Please respect the natural environment that makes this hobby possible. Be responsible and be informed. Support aquacultured/tank raised species.

 

[clarkiiboi]

Do you have anything living in your tank now? If so, be careful with the LR--die off can be fatal to them. Do a search or ask about how to "re"-cure LR. My answers are based on no fish, inverts, etc.
1. nature's ocean--good stuff, but no critters just bacteria. Supposed to not make your tank cycle (?). I had luck with it when I started my tank 2 years ago, never saw a cycle. You can seed it with your LR (if its empty). If not, don't place LR in without getting more info on what I stated above.
2. What scubasteve said mixed with what I mentioned. But you may get unwanted critters.
3. Rio's--heard time and time over in here that they are junk. Maxi jets are better. Just from my experience powersweeps and penguins are junk also.
4. Personally, I dont like the packages. There are things I do not want, so I order individually. It cost more, but I get what I want. (for example not wanted, but in packages: coral banded shrimp, blue leggged crabs, brittle stars, pepp. shrimp, etc)

 

[bang guy]

Just my $0.02 worth.
1 - I don't believe it's worth even 1/10th of that price. It just has bacteria and sand. I would highly recommend the Premium Florida Live Sand though. It's outstanding and a great value.
2 - The biggest advantage of this rock is the diverse life on it. The biggest disadvantage is that it's more dense than other types of rock.
3 - I'm not a big fan of Rios.
4 - I would recommend picking out your cleanup crew individually.

 

[fishman830]

stay away from rio's
DON'T get a clean up package, just get the exact inverts you want, i've found those packages are WAY to plentiful.