new to hobby need help

[kvmn]

hi,,i am setting up a90 reeftank with 90g sump
my question is i got about 120lb of live rock and 120 live sand,,i am thinking to put all that lr and ls,,in sump and refugium part,, and leave my show tank with bare bottom and some live rock to put coral,,will this work ??or lr and ls need to be in side of show tank for filtration ??thanks,,
also if i have rock in sump then do i need light down there too? i am sure that i need light for refugium part,,thanks for every help

[David Grigor]

LR doesn't have to be in the show tank to get the biological benefits from it. Doesn't matter if it's in the show tank ( most common ), sump, or refugium. No lights is just fine. Bacteria don't need light.

So feel free to put it whereever you want.

[oyam123]

It’s all part of the same system, so if it filters in the sump or in the tank it’s all the same. LR/LS in the tank will help feed some of the animals you may keep.

[kvmn]

same as live sand???

[David Grigor]

Yep. Same thing still get the biological effects regardless where it is. Only thing would be if you have fish in the show tank that your trying to create fauna for them to eat would be more readily availble in the show tank.

[hypertech]

The only other thing about sand is deciding if you want a DSB somewhere or a big shallow bed in the display.

[mattb]

The other thing too, before you stock it to the gills with livestock, is look at some nice aquaria to see how they aquascape.... it's one of those artsy things, David has a good article about using rods to assist in aquascaping....

I remember my first reef tank... way more live rock than I needed, and it looked really crowded....

[wes]

I remember my first reef tank... way more live rock than I needed, and it looked really crowded....

my liverock is mostly free medium/small stuff I got free, so my aquascaping is... less... than... awesome.

[mattb]

my liverock is mostly free medium/small stuff I got free, so my aquascaping is... less... than... awesome.

That's pretty good though, my first was... Charles @ Wet World"hello, friend let me see your pocketbook? Oh, that's very rare Marshall Island Live rock, normally $14.99/lbs, for you friend, it's $14.59"

It was nice rock though... Marshall Island IS my favorite....

[wes]

I got lucky and bought some from mary to mix in with the freebies when I started my first real reef though. actually, that's what started my "reef".... a few mushrooms and a toadstool leather.

[David Grigor]

my liverock is mostly free medium/small stuff I got free, so my aquascaping is... less... than... awesome.

Actually unless your tank is more than 18" wide, using the so called "Artsy" aquascaping I prefer pieces no bigger than a softball. When you have large pieces, it limits what you can do for interesting scructures because put a couple of rocks together and can already be too tall or too wide and don't really get any interesting looking sturctures.

[spectrum]

IT all just has to be in the same system.