Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

[jsmkmavity]

 

[jsmkmavity]

Toss the salt and rinse the sand with freshwater till water stays clear.

 

[kingranch2003]

Welcome to our community!

 

[BryanM]

Hello everyone,

As said in my surname, i'm a newbie in reef keeping, i already have an 85 liters freshwater tank with 5 species fish for about 8 or 10 months.

If i'm here it's, of course, because i wanna make my first reef tank.
I just baught a second hand tank, 125liters, with a lot of stuff still new, like sand, rocks, light, skimmer etc...
My question is the old bags (still new not openned) of ocean's nature live sand, some probiotic stuff from aquaforest and AF Life Source, are they still good to use ? I think the guy bought them 2 years ago. The live sand still have some water in it from what i can see, and the AF LS is sealed like new.
I also have some salt, but it started to crystalised, not all of it, but there's some big chunks of salt that became hard, can i use the non crystalised salt ? Can i brake the crystalised salt and use it ?

Thanks for the help guys !

Welcome to the forums!

 

[the newbie goby]

thank you guys

Toss the salt and rinse the sand with freshwater till water stays clear.

Ok will do that, Thanks. Just regular tap water right ?

And to start the cycling of the tank, do you add beneficial bacteria ? phytoplancton and zooplacton ? or do i just put a shrimp and wait for it to rot ?
One more thing, i'm going in a 2 weeks holidays trip next tuesday i thaught about starting the cycle of my tank before going in holidays to win some time, is it a good idea, or do i just wait my return so i can monitor everything ?