[Ann]

Thank you so much. I tried to look it up, but the explanations and photos just confused me. Now I will know what I'm buying. You made a clear explanation with good visuals. I appreciate all your help, Odin.
Ann

[Ann]

Are there any metals or possible harmful substances that can escape from the Ocean Rocks into the water? Thank you.
Ann

[odin]

There shouldn't be anything untoward on or in them, I always soaked my ocean rock for 24 hours in RO water to remove any loose debris prior to adding it to my tank. The main metal you need to be careful with is copper, you can buy a copper test kit by API which is just a liquid test kit but I've never had issues with the ocean rock i have purchased, some came from eBay and some from my LFS.

If you put the rocks in your tank and wait until you get algae growth this should give your tank enough time to remove any ammonia source up and create some food for your Opae ula, I hope that answers your question.

[Ann]

Thank you once again for your great reply.
Ann

[Ann]

I'll have to start taking notes and plan my strategy for setting up my tank.
Ann

[odin]

As long as you have one item to buffer the water your shrimp will remain healthy and you wont get PH crashes and the troubles that come with it. You can have the substrate as the buffer, the rocks or neither and have a calcium carbonate block in your tank.

You could have a crushed coral substrate (buffer) and lava rocks, or any old tank gravel or sand with some ocean rock (buffer).
you could even go with sand, lava rock and a block of calcium carbonate (buffer).

Or have a mixture of them all

[Ann]

I'd like to have Ocean rock with crushed coral gravel. What do you think of those spider web branches? Are they useful or just decoration? Thank you again.
Ann

[odin]

The dead Fan corals look really nice, i have one that i imported from America but never used as i ran out of space in my tank. I think its a good excuse for me to setup another tank to use it.

Here it is:

20141111_111338.jpg (87.84 KiB) Viewed 15260 times

edit: they just make nice decoration, its nice to add a personal touch to a shrimp tank though!

[Ann]

I think that's a very sensible idea. It's beautiful.
Ann