RobH

I agree wholeheartedly. Id rather have them tell me straight right away that they dont know.

While I am no longer in New Zealand demanding that my brother the glazier make me larger and larger aquariums, I have noticed around here (Los Angeles) that saltwater prices and indeed prices in general really differ. I give you my royal gramma as an example. Where I work it was around ten dollars, two miles away it was eighteen dollars and further away still he was only four dollars. If you want the best price you have to shop around, but sometimes the cheapest fish is not the best. I would happily pay a little more to a fish store that had clean tanks and good looking stock. As well as employees not afraid to go and ask a question of thier peers and not just create an answer so they dont look stupid.

I would quite happily recomend this process for freshwater. However saltwater is a different kettle of fish. The cheapest way to do it is to add play sand and let the tank cycle for ages. The fastest way is to pay through the nose for bioactive sand from the get go.

My crenichla proteus used to steal all my Angels eggs. They would keep attacking him but he really likes eggs.

Are you after the mud to create a deep sand bed style aquarium? You can use some types of playsand from hardware/toy stores to make the bed and when your cycle is complete you can add the elements to it. There are places to get live sand activators, wondermud and detrivores online. Im not sure if customs would mess with your package though. Or. If youre talking about the bioactive reef sand you can buy in sealed twenty pound bags that stuff isnt so expensive, shipping would be the big killer. However they claim all the bio stuff will stay alive for a year or so, you could ship it the slowest cheapest possible way.