Last night I put in base rock and sand. I used a layer of eggcrate first in the bottom of the tank. It gives another 1/4" or so and the rock isn't drectly on the glass. I put a little sand in just to cover that. Then I put the base rock in and made sure it was firmly in place. I drilled and put two acrylic rods through the tall piece to keep it stable. Next I filled in with sand and pushed as much as possible in any voids under the rock. There are a couple lage flat base rocks in the empty area that will give a good sturdy base for the larger pieces of
LR. The sand bed is over 5" in places and just about 4" in the low corner. I used sugar fine sand as that seems to be what is reccommended for best life in
DSB. Though I have heard lots of stories about long lasting sand storms with the fine sand. We will see how that goes.
From MarcoRocks, very nice base rock. Very porus and lots of holes for critters. Marc was great but UPS was brutal to my box. Marc picked out thee nice pieces for me and it ended up bing five and some rubble. Marc said he hadn't had much trouble with shipping before and offered to make it right but it worked out well as it is I think.
And I got a little hitch hiker when I was rinsing my rock. Ok well he didn't make it since it is long dead and dry base rock. But still cool anyway.
I am debating about getting a large trashcan to mix
SW to fill the tank with. I don't want to just fill with
RO because I figure that will soak into the sandbed and be lower
salinity. And then it will take me a while and I will keep adding salt until all that stabalizes. Seems like it would be easier to start with proper
SW.
I am also expecting alot of milky water from the sand so I might just fill up 1/3 the tank then siphon out the dirty water and replace it a couple times to get the worst of it out.
