New Setup Questions

[heiifyre]

I am about to start my 55-gallon up again, I have been out of the hobby for about 4 years and I have several questions. First will all of my chemicals be fine I do not see exp. dates on them. Second I know that I do not want to use my old crushed coral bed but can I use some of my old LIVE now DEAD and very dried out rock. Or should I just buy all new. I am working on a very limited budget and I want to do this the right way. I know that I want to do the live sand bed but I’d bet that that much sand is going to cost $200 or better. Is there anything that I can mix with the sand? And my last question is My LFS is 100 miles away anyone have a good idea on what to use to transfer 55 gallons of water in 1 trip.
My equipment is an Amircel Trickle filter with skimmer, and a 2213 eheim can filter with 4 power heads in the tank. Any Help at all would be very helpful.

 

[oceanblue]

Heiifyre,
I'd be leary about some of the chemicals, a known truth about chemicals is that they can and will change state and/or can become toxic over time. I would say you can absolutely use your old rock! The live sand is the current craze and peeps are happy with it, I know alot of people have used southdown sand from home depot for 3/4 of their sandbed and then seeded it with live from a store, and this works well. As for transporting the water, yeesh, I would hate to think of toting that much water from someplace. Do you have any kind of water filter? ie DI or RO unit? I use the Tap Water Purifier from Aq. Pharm. and it works great!! much more efficient than an RO and outperforms an RO in a number of areas, and is usually easier/cheaper to operate. I think the tap water purifier can be picked up for as little as $40 on the web, then you can make your own water! Do any of your neighbors/friends have water filters? Your equipment sounds good...I'd definately let your tank run for a few days just to make sure everything is 100%. The other option I'd look at is what kind of tap water you have locally...do you know anything about it? is it high in nitrates or phosphates? I know alot of the water in Texas is hard with lots of metals...but You know more than I I'm sure. I might consider doing the first fill with conditioned tap water...I mean you can use a bunch of carbon to grab out alot of the metals and chemicals combined with something like seachem prime would give you useable water I would think. anyway, just some thoughts, good luck, keep us posted, and have fun with it!! Dave

 

[ocellaris_keeper]

Your rock will do great - just put hose it off a bit to get any dust/house cleaners off and put it in.
as far as the Water Goes - Do you have a Safeway store near by? They sell RO water for 69 cents a gallon - pick up 25 gallons on one trip and then 25 in another - and go for it. about $35.00 - $40.00 in water.
And you can manage it without driving all over the place. I have the same distance problem.
Brewski