how much live sand

[squidworth]

Ok going to start buying stuff up for a new 75. I just cant afford to fill this thing up with all live sand, so I would like to put in "dead sand" and seed it with live. How much live sand will give me a good start? I am going to buy about 50 lbs of lr after the cycle goes.
Second. What kind of clean up crew do I need to put in to keep it clean (before fish)

 

[fshhub]

1st, we have 75, and used only one bag of ls, since you are using lr too, i would use the ls and lr to seed the dry with, it will work well and also cycle your tank for you, both
my rec woudl be to add the lr and sand and cycle with them
once cycled, i would get some snails(trochus and nassarius) and crabs(if you want them), and some shrimp,
then after all is going well adn lagae blenny would be a good addition and woudl do a good job helping you with any algae
HTH and good luck

 

[ocellaris_keeper]

What type of tank are you creating?
Reef or FISH only?
If you want to use the substrate as your biofilter you will need to have about a 3 to 4 inch DSB. This can be accomplished by buying sand from Home Depot and "seeding" it with Live Sand.
A good technique would be to purchase an equal amount of HD sand 40lb and bacteria active sand 40lb and mix then in the tank. This can be the start of the DSB (lower half), then purchase Live sand from SWF.com 50lb and you will not only have a nice DSB it will be full of cool critters.
You don't need to buy all of this at once either. the first part can be in the tank while it's establishing.