Lbs Lr Pr Gallon Rule

[Donya]

AGH...sory guys this got posted in the wrong section. Appologies to the mods! Please delete it or move it or something...sorry sorry. I meant it to be in Tropical Marine and had 2 windows open*sigh*.


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I am curious about the applicability of the amount/weight of LR per gallon "rule" for different systems. With the larger tank that I'm planning and recently cleaned out to get started, it is going to be largely invert again if not 100% invert this time. My LR in my pico is underdeveloped. I have a feeling--minus the one citrus goby--I could have had a couple pieces less LR than I have, since only a portion of it really bounced back after the initial dieoff. I wonder if that portion may have been higher quality if I hadn't had other pieces in competing with it....e.g. the same biobug count to a smaller rock volume.

My question is probably best phrased as: should I be looking to do weight of LR to match the "rule" even though it will not be a FOWLR or reef, or would it be better to get a under the "weight rule" amount of of LR that is high quality so that it doesn't repeat my pico's developement process? Is there anything magic about having the 1lb per gallon of LR in a tank that will never press the LR's filtration capacity?

 

[maestro]

I dont think theres anythign magic about the rule, its purely whats has found over time to be suffiencient for normal stocking levels, if you have smaller bioload then you will need less liverock, its the bioload that is important, not the amount of gallons, obviously though the bigger the tank the more fish people have so thats where the rule of thumb came from.

For example lets say you have 2 clown fish in a 20 gallon with 20 pounds of liverock, if you moved evrything into a 40 gallon tank you would suddenly need any more liverock just because its in a bigger tank.