Newibie Questions

Hi I want to ask some questions to fill my knowledge about salt water aquarium..specially my 12 gallon tank!
Help would be appreciated.

1. I have 15lb live rock, and 20lb live sand. I want to add more rocks in the 12 gallon tank for decorations. Do I have to buy live rock? or can i just buy dead rock?

2.And If i do buy any of the 2 rocks at petco, can i just instantly put them in my tank soon as I get home?

3. I know I can use heater is the water is too cold...but what can i do if water gets too high temp? Do i put ice in or something? Or is there a water cooler thing just like heater?

 

you can buy dead rock , your live rock will eventually seed the base rock with coraline. alot of people if the wqter gets too warm , use a small fan to blow across the waters surface to cool it down.

 

1. I have 15lb live rock, and 20lb live sand. I want to add more rocks in the 12 gallon tank for decorations. Do I have to buy live rock? or can i just buy dead rock?

dead rock = base rock. Get another 10-15lbs of base rock and you'll be set. Make sure it's clean.

2.And If i do buy any of the 2 rocks at petco, can i just instantly put them in my tank soon as I get home?

Base rock... doesn't really matter where you get it. I would shy away from PetCo LR. I have two cousins that tried using it separately. In both of their tanks you could literally see a stream of *something* leaching out after a month or so (forget how long it actually was). Both tanks crashed within weeks of the 'stream'. I have no idea what it was. Both sets of LR came from store locations about 30 minutes apart.

To be fair, I don't *know* the crashes are from the rock (it was both of their first SW tanks)... but I'd take the safe route... This was about a year ago... things might be different now... just my 3rd party experience.

You should try to get other people's experience with PetCo LR too... mine (I use "mine" loosely here) might be an anomaly.

In general, you can put cleaned base rock directly in the tank.

3. I know I can use heater is the water is too cold...but what can i do if water gets too high temp? Do i put ice in or something? Or is there a water cooler thing just like heater?

Run a fan across the surface to speed up evaporation (evaporation is a natural cooling method). You will have to adjust your top offs accordingly.

The key is to have a consistent temp. You don't want fluctuations.

 

toofa rock I am not sure of the spelling I used I love it personally as it is real porus and you can shave and drill it easy, if you go to petco it is in the dry rock section next to the place rock it is whitish in color and looks like a big piece of honey comb. I know the petcos in vegas have it. but also talk to you lfs as they may be able to obtain some for you. but rinse it real real good get all the dust particals off of it.