seeding base rock with live rock, couple questions

[nitrofish]

I have a 180 gallon aquarium with 45 lbs of live rock (from old tank, but it had a lot of die off during 3-4 days of shipping, lets just say Iv seen better rock )and 150 lbs of base rock.

my question is what is how many lbs of live rock do I need to "seed" my base rock? I want to have about 360 lbs total rock, so I was thinking of adding another 100 lbs or so of live rock. is this a good combination or should I get less live rock and get more cheep base rock? Money is an issue, but I do want this tank to look nice.

 

[dad300]

I just redid my tank.. I have about 35 lbs of dry dead baserock.(hi-rocks) I had in the tank about a pound.... Maybe two of rubble. and a sand bed that still had critters in it. a month later I have pods all over the place and my rock is beginning to get coraline on it. If you want to wait what you have can seed your tank. get some sand from other tanks and get some mounted frags( on live rock) and I thinkyou would be ok.

 

[Lam]

Let me ask you another question to answer yours. How patient are you willing to be?

If you have lots of patience and money is an issue, then what you have is fine to seed the base rock. It'll take awhile for your base rock to become effective as a biological filter. The more base rock you have, the more patience is required.

One additional advice I want to give you is don't over stock on rocks. One of the pitfalls of reefing is overstocking on rocks. You want a reef tank with corals, not a rock tank.

 

[jango]

question how much of live rock is water wieght?

if you pulled all of the rock out now you would have more than when you put it in..
im just trying to put in perspective how much rock you will have with dry + live after the dry is wet(im confusing myself trying to figure it out)

 

[Aquadiva]

question how much of live rock is water wieght?

if you pulled all of the rock out now you would have more than when you put it in..
im just trying to put in perspective how much rock you will have with dry + live after the dry is wet(im confusing myself trying to figure it out)

I suppose that all depends on how dense the "dry rock" is. For example, I just bought about 75 lbs of Marco's dry rock. This stuff is extremely light and porous.

I was going to use some of the Hirocks, but Marco's stuff is far lighter. Although I didn't weigh individual pieces, while aquascaping the weight of the rock dramatically increased the longer it sat in the water. I can't imagine the Hirocks absorbing that much water.

Some of Marco's pieces I swear almost doubled in weight. So, I bought 75 lbs of Marco's rock, and 20lbs of LFS live rock. After filling my 75 gallon, I still have enough of Marcos' rock left over to stock a 55 (or a very full 40).

Linda

 

[jango]

thats very good to know, i will soon be setting up my 75 and i am also going to get some of marco's rock that stuff looks awesome...

thanks,
pj

 

[Greg Hiller]

You can seed a tank with very little live rock, all you need (as mentioned above) is patience. Don't overload the tank with fish very fast either. You do need to check out the live rock you use though, as if the critters you want to populate your tank are not on the rock, unless they come from the base of corals you add later, nothing comes out of thin air.

 

[Aquadiva]

You can seed a tank with very little live rock, all you need (as mentioned above) is patience. Don't overload the tank with fish very fast either. You do need to check out the live rock you use though, as if the critters you want to populate your tank are not on the rock, unless they come from the base of corals you add later, nothing comes out of thin air.

Good point....would it be better to obtain a small quantity of LR from a number of different sources to seed the tank. Something similar to the live sand philosophy? Different rock from different tanks, or sources, would have different organisms. yes?

Also, would live rock placed in a refugium under the tank help seed the live rock in the display tank? Or should all the live rock be in the display tank?

Linda

 

[nitrofish]

I think ill get another 100 lbs from tampabay salt water or maybe a small box from liveaquaria.com. either way I will get 100lbs total. that should give me a nice full look

 

[wrassefan]

I think ill get another 100 lbs from tampabay salt water or maybe a small box from liveaquaria.com. either way I will get 100lbs total. that should give me a nice full look

Nitrofish,
Why not get 75lbs of dry and 25lbs of live from Marc067?? Prob save a few bucks in the process and get some really nice pieces. I've gotten LR from Marc and it was some nice stuff.

http://216.235.242.50/forums/showthread.php?t=1206

 

[Greg Hiller]

>would it be better to obtain a small quantity of LR from a number of different sources to seed the tank. Something similar to the live sand philosophy? Different rock from different tanks, or sources, would have different organisms. yes?<

Sure, the problem is you should be careful and only get rock out of a tank that has no problematic organisms, unless you are prepared to deal with those organisms (eg. Aiptasia - not a big deal, but once in a tank VERY difficult to completely eradicate). You might only want to get small pieces of rocks from experienced reefkeepers that know what to look for.

>Also, would live rock placed in a refugium under the tank help seed the live rock in the display tank? Or should all the live rock be in the display tank<

Depends on the method of reproduction of the organism. Many sponges, and various invertebrates will move freely though the water and end up in any tank plumbed together. Aiptasia is very good at this!!

 

[nitrofish]

im not quite ready to buy all the rock yet, I need to save a little bit of money first, but IM open for suggestions. I have seen some incredible pics of the tbs rock so im kind of leaning toward that. I may add a couple other brands like live aquaria lalo rock and marc067's for diversity. I really don't know, I just want something more than coriline on my rocks, some local fish stores like tropical aquarium have terrible looking rock. I just want to make sure im getting my moneys worth

 

[Ray]

Just becareful with the TBS rock, you need to watch out for mantis shrimps and you will most likely have aptasia on it. I had picked some up from another reefer, it was a small batch for a 10G nano and it had 1 mantis (he got it out before I got the rock) and pleanty of aptasia