Contents of "The Package"

It is easy. First, what's on the bottom of the ocean? Live sand. Live sand is just one of the key Ingredients to "The Package".

There is no Plenum in the ocean so you don't need that or an under gravel filter. Simply do as the ocean does and provide your tank with a thin layer of Live Sand for your substrate.

The Live Sand is placed directly on the bottom of the tank and evenly spread out. The Live Sand is full of microscopic and megascopic organisms which help in denitrification, and disposal of detritus and uneaten food.

Accept no substitutes for live sand, as it cannot be created, but must be harvested well offshore in the ocean to be clean of pollutants and silicates. Live sand collected in this manner will be a mixture of sand, shell bits, corallines, bivalves, starfish, snails, and many organisms not visible to your eye, but very much needed in your tank.

Now you need to provide the shelter for you tanks inhabitants. This is Live Rock.

Live Rock harvested from the ocean is also full of life and bacteria essential to a saltwater tank.

Live Rock should be just that, live. Accept no substitutes here either, as true Live Rock will have many animals visible and invisible to your eye.

Plus Live Rock will be the predominate ingredient to your tank so you will want rock that has life on it, such as, bivalves, feather dusters, sponges, worms, gorgonians, hard corals, algae, crustaceans, and much other life that occurs on rock we supply with The Package.

Now you need the animals which will maintain the tank for you. Just as they work in nature, they will work at home in your tank. These animals are Blue leg hermits, Turbo snails, Serpent stars, Brittle stars, Tiger tail cucumbers, and Peppermint shrimp. All these animals will work together to give you an almost maintenance free tank.

In our experience a tank set up with The Package will result in a tank that requires less maintenance than a traditional reef tank, other than adding fresh water for evaporation and cleaning the glass (although the snails will help you keep the glass clean!).

The blue leg hermits will scavenge algae off of everything. The rocks, sand, corals, plants, gorgonians, anywhere and everywhere they will go and clean up the algae for you.

The serpent and brittle stars will live under the rocks and provide two advantageous results. They will eat any foods that get by your fish and inverts, and end up on the bottom of the tank. Plus their natural living accommodations are under rocks where they will excavate the sand, creating a home for themselves and stirring the sand under the rocks preventing any dead zones in your substrate.

The tiger tail cucumbers are sand eaters. They process the sand through their gut at an amazing rate, just as in nature cleaning it of detritus for their food. The shrimps have multi purposes also, cleaning, stirring, feeding. They will live in, on and around the live sand. Digging, sifting, and continually spawning, creating a very valuable natural food source for your other reef inhabitants, fish, corals and inverts.

All these animals are the key to a saltwater tank and must be added in the proper amounts to achieve success. The Recipe

How do you do it? It is real easy just follow The Recipe below. This works for ANY size tank from one gallon to 1000 gallons and up!!

You can figure the amount of rock, sand and animals needed, and the cost of your package using this information. For Packages under 55 gallons figure the animals needed as if it was a 50 gallon tank.

• 1 pound per gallon Live Sand.
• 1 Serpent or Brittle star per 50 gal.
• 2 pounds per gallon Live Rock.
• 2 Tiger Tail Cucumbers per 50 gal.
• 1 Blue Leg Hermits per gal.
• 1 Peppermint shrimp per 50 gal.
• 1/2 Turbo Snail per gal.

This Recipe is your key to success in having a happy reef tank! Follow this recipe and we guarantee you will have a happy reef tank. Many customers report that in just two hours after setting up their tanks they are crystal clear, and happy!