Do Live Rock Need Anything?

[lewiss]

I disagree...I think you'd benefit with no lighting, just flow on your rock, until you start adding other livestock, because copepods, amphipods, and other zooplankton and organisms prefer less light, so without light on your rock, your plankton and bacteria levels will grow faster, and thus your tank will be more stable and overall better off, JMO.

And on the timers, you may want to get one anyways, just incase you forget to turn it on/off one day.

Also as soon as lights go on i suspect the organisms will die off anyway as they will no longer have the required light level, and therefore natural survival of the fitest will kick in, the weak will die. Thats my opinion, may be wrong!


I'd say lights should be on with livestock for 10hours. I say this because fish will be happier in a natural based enviroment, this will mean their lifespan will be closer to that of when they live in the wild. I think the best thing you can do is try to mirror natural marine life.

+2 on the timer!! Easy and cheap!

 

[fishy55599]

okay, shall keep lights of a couple hours a day to keep coraline going.

will try get a timer soon.

shal get prawns soon, is it 1 a day, every few days, ect.

 

[lewiss]

Dont add anything unless you aren't going to add any livestock soon. When are you planning on adding livestock?

 

[woody88]

You will need a prawn or other live food to keep the LR going. Once you have live stock in then stop.

If there's nothing to feed the good bacteria/organisms living in/on the rock they would start to die off.

Although theoretically the die off would produce ammonia to feed new organisms!

Just drop a prawn in! Lol

 

[fishy55599]

Dont add anything unless you aren't going to add any livestock soon. When are you planning on adding livestock?

no livestock for at least 2 months i would say
i need to get all the live rock first of all, and it costs alot.

bassically when ever i have some cash.

 

[lewiss]

A man who budgets!! Well done!! My tanks put me in debt pretty much!!

Ok, add a prawn, wait for ammonia to spike and then drop to zero, and add another one when it's back to zero, stop doing this when you are a week or so away from adding live stock.

Hope that makes sense, if not let me know!

 

[fishy55599]

A man who budgets!! Well done!! My tanks put me in debt pretty much!!
ye, defentetally budgets the remaining 12.2 kg is coming from parents bank i think i spent enough on powerheads, sand, 2.8kg of LR and the next thing IM buying is test kit.
Ok, add a prawn, wait for ammonia to spike and then drop to zero, and add another one when it's back to zero, stop doing this when you are a week or so away from adding live stock.
i didnt think i needed to test it untill i have all the LR in there? confused.com
Hope that makes sense, if not let me know!

 

[lewiss]

Well that's true but at the same time if your adding prawn and ultimately bacteria, you dont want to over do it and have sky rocketing ammonia! How about this instead - chuck a prawn in for now and then again in a week or so.

People do all this very differently but ultimately the goal is the same.

The reason we're adding the prawn is to feed the organisms on the live rock. By testing you know when they've cycled it (aka eaten it)

The point is that as long as you don't over feed you'll be fine.

So feed once, and then in a week or so you can do it again if your still a way off from adding LR. If you haven't got a test kit don't worry!

 

[fishy55599]

makes sense.
my live rock is getting alot more life now, some weird things aswell

 

[lewiss]

What have you seen so far??

 

[fishy55599]

What have you seen so far??

well 2 tiny feather dusters, 1 bigger feather duster, weird black and furry white things on the rock.
then something that looks kinda like a coral but not sure it is as they are tiny and not close to eacch other.

 

[lewiss]

Feather dusters are good, u need to feed them though if you want them to survive-photoplankton / marine snow type product.
Like the sound of black and furry white things. Any photo's no idea what that might be??
Coral sounds possible? even if it is small, and close together. Get some photo's up if you want me or someone else to try and ID

 

[fishy55599]

oh i thought they were filter feeders or something, thought they fed them selves.
well as you know i am terrible at taking pics, but took some earlier will upload in a moment.
coral was my first though?

pics on in a mo

 

[fishy55599]

came out better than i thought

 

[Donya]

oh i thought they were filter feeders or something, thought they fed them selves.

They are - but there have to be edible particles in the water for them to do that! New tanks will have little to none. Still, the average hitchhiker feather duster is pretty hardy compared to the ornamental ones, so they can usually stick it out until the tank starts being fed regularly. If you start feeding a bunch in a brand new tank, you may either get a population explosion (if the rock is already able to handle it) or a surprise in the form of chemical spikes.