Is My Pottery Sw Safe?

Torrean · Jan 27, 2006

Look at my sig and if you want to see more click on the link in my sig. I don't know anything about saltwater so I thought I'd ask you guys. Would it be safe and what would it be good for? The pottery is porous until it is glazed. Thanks a lot.

EDIT: Could live rock be stacked on them? Could coral grow on them? Could I make them so that coral will grow on them? Anything you can offer is greatly appreciated.

steelhealr · Jan 29, 2006

If the pottery is safe for FW fish, it is most likely safe for SW. The coralline algae will most likely cover and encrust it afterawhile. I'm not sure why you would want to stack live rock on it unless you were trying to make a cave. The rounded sides look as if it would be unstable to stack on unless your stabilized the LR with epoxy putty. SH

Torrean · Jan 29, 2006

Well I wanted to put live rock on it because I've read that live rock is very expensive and this (may) cut down on the cost. I've also heard that people find it difficult to build height into there reef. Imagine a round tank. Imagine that I build a large round piece with a flat top...then I build a smaller round piece with a flat top. Then another and another. Like a wedding cake. This would (theoretically) add a lot of height to the reef. You could then pile rocks around the bottom piece and then stack higher and higher. Leaving openings where the holes in the piece are cut.

What would you do with my pottery in a SW tank? What would it be good for. Keep in mind i'm a total noob when it comes to saltwater. I don't want a SW tank so I don't really want to do all the research it takes to set up a saltwater tank just to figure out what my pottery might be good for. If someone askes me to make a piece for a SW tank and I can't get what I need out of you guys I guess I will do all that work. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. EX. That would look like crap in a saltwater tank, or that would be beautiful, it'd have soft corals growin all over it and the fish would love the hiding places. Thanks again.

Navarre · Jan 29, 2006

The reason we need so much liverock in a marine tank is for filtration purposes. SO if you take out most of the liverock and construct a supportive structure for the remaining rock to sit upon then you are going to seriously comprimise your filtration capabilties. If you are running mechanical filtration at the same time then this is not such an isue of course.

Not sure what other things you could design specifically for a marine tank with pottery but i did once see a reef tank with a huge pottery vase (the bulbus ones with a narrow neck).. this was half burried in the sand and surrounded with livrock.. the look it gave was of an old lost vase that had possible fallen overboard from a passing ship etc. It also made an excellant home for the resident moray eel in the tank :hey:

steelhealr · Jan 29, 2006

Excellent response by 'da boss'. Agree. SH

Torrean · Jan 29, 2006

Could I make LR out of my pottery? 90% Live rock 10% pottery into a tank at once. The bacteria in the LR (I am assuming it is bacteria, probably some other stuff too) would move onto the surface of my pottery and into the piece because it is porous. I've read that it's done with concrete so maybe it would work???

What effect would coraline algae have on the appearance of the piece. Would it coat it completely or just in splotches.

What % of a tank should be Live Rock once the tank is fully stocked?

How much would it cost to set up a 5 gallon nano tank? Roughly

I'm glad to hear that someone somewhere has put pottery into SW. Maybe I can think of some more good applications. It seems like there should be something it would be perfect for but I can't put my finger on it. Thanks for the help. Sorry I don't know SW.

Navarre · Jan 30, 2006

Pottery would not work as a filtration method unlike liverock. Yes its porous but the reason liverock works so well is becaquse of hte life within the rock, worms and other creatures burrow through the rock and create pathways where water can pass through. As it does this the water becomes low in oxygen content and the bacteria changes to nitrate reducing bacteria. As this bacteria only lives in oxygen poor water, it simply would not workl on pottery. The surface would get a build up of denitrifying bacteria but only as far as nitrate. This means nitrate would slowly rise in the system as the nitrate could not be turned into nitrogen.

The ratio of liverock needed to filter a tank effectivly is 1kg liverock per 2 gallons of water.