How Much Live Rock

[BeanniesDaDa]

I am Looking to set up a 75 gallon tank. How much rock would be the min that I could get away with? Also what are the advantages, if any, of using Dry base rock as opposed to Live Rock?

 

[chuck]

I just set up my 75 with 60 pounds of base, and 60 pounds of live.

HOw much you need depends on what you plan to keep, live rock is your first, and biggest filtration unit.

Base rock is money saving. Eventually it turns to live rock if kept in a tank with live rock. I have seen threads of using all base rock and one piece of live rock(someone on BRS wrote something on it), depends on how much time you want to wait to increase your bioload.

I am a newbie and maybe way off, but this is how I understand it

 

[Moe_K]

I like 1 lb of LR per gallon - so you'd want 75 lbs.
First (and biggest) advantage of using dead rock is the large wads of money you'll save.
Second advantage is zero impact on natural reefs using dead rock as opposed to seomthing cut from a reef.

 

[NateHanson]

It's hard to say how many pounds you'll need, because a pound of rock can mean many different things because of differences in density and porosity. A 5 pound piece of florida rock could be about the size of a large grapefruit. A 5 pound piece of figi rock might be more melon sized, a 5 pound piece of kaelini is even bigger, and a 5 pound dried out piece of figi dead rock could be soccerball sized. They're all 5 pounds, but the florida will both create less of an aquascape and have less biological filtration capacity because of it's density.

Very long way of saying, buy light rock, start with about 1#/gallon (or a little less if some of it is dry rock). Then add from there if you think you need it for visual reasons.

Nate

 

[dz6t]

Nate, good point. "lbs of LR per gallon" just as unimformative as "watts per gallon" regarding lighting.

 

[reefguy78]

good point

 

[BeanniesDaDa]

Thanks for the info, I was going to start with 75LBS and work up.

 

[nitrofish]

you deffinitly don't want to go with too much, I did and its really hard to work with.

 

[ceige]

I have 60ish lbs in my 30 and I am happy with it. Not much sand space in the light but I don?t want a lot of corals that want to sit down there anyway.....I wanted more rock for the additional ability of keeping the water clean...if you don?t use it as part of the filter systems then it comes down to personal preference like so many others parts of this addiction???.