Live Rock -YEAH RIGHT!

I am not a fan of live rock (if you didn’t guess).  If you do use live rock you get hitch hiking pests (like blinking bristle worms) and basically have to wait for the “live” rock to die before you can add anything to the aquarium. The whole tank maturation thing.

Carib sea do a range of rock we import from the states. 100% free and great value if you compare it to “live” Rock.

All this rock is from my home tank that we had to pull down due to a snail eating/boring a hole into a silicon join and creating a leak! $1000 later and the tank was fixed. Only problem was we had to empty the tank and send it over to Gary at Arana Hills.

I use live sand called Aragalive also from Carib Sea. The permits on this were a PITA to get, AQIS are very strict on importing “live” and bacteria products. After a lot of effort though, we import without the sand being irradiated on entry into Australia, so it’s the genuine US live products.

The other beauty of Aragalive is you don’t need to wash it (Praise Be!). Washing Ooilte sugar sized sand would be the pits and you’d loose half the sand down the sink! When using the Live Sands you simply pour in the sand, empty the satchel of Bio Magnetic Clarifer from in the bag into the tank, and an hour later it’s clear as crystal!

Rock work is a personal thing. Pete has done as he pleases with this tank. Did I mention it is two and a half feet deep?

Pete is actually balancing on a 4 foot high ladder on the other side of the wall.

Sand in, time to fill her up!

Sand ripples