Live rock and life sand question

[Lovesfish]

Can I buy live rock and put it in my tank with base rock and be able to add fish before the base rock becomes live. Also if you do live rock do you still have to do live sand?

 

[Opcn]

Add the LR ontop of the BR and it will seed it, just add slowly, also, live sand serves a different purpose than live rock, different critters live there and they help clean up rather than filter, what you can do is seed your argonite or dolomite or crushed corral with live sand, say 1/4th of the sand live or if you really want to take forevver just add a pound of live sand to your sand every week for a year or so.

 

[Lovesfish]

Could I do half live rock and half base rock and put it all in at the same time?

 

[Opcn]

you could do half and half and at the same time, just put the base rock below the live rock, because coraline algea needs light.

 

[Lovesfish]

Well would a standard light that I would use for a freshwater tank be sufficent light for the LR or do I need a special light? I really apprecate you helping me out so much

 

[Chac]

Your standard lighting will be fine for the LR, just remember to give the rock enought flow.

 

[Lovesfish]

Now if I have say 50 pounds of live rock in the 120 fallon tank and 55 pounds of dead rock and the tank cycled can I add fish as long as I stay in the 50 poud live rock parameters until the base rock becomes live?

 

[Chac]

Depending on what dead rock you are adding- if it is soimething that is Porus & light then it will colonize quickly if not it will not, but you can add fish after the cycle as long as you keep the numbers down at 1st to allow the rock enought time to colonise

 

[Lovesfish]

Well I was thinking of starting with some crabs and life that lives on the rock in hopes that it might help the base rock spread more quickly

 

[Chac]

Add a clean up crew 1st (Crabs, Snails etc)

 

[Lovesfish]

yea I know that and also would lava rock make a good base rock or not?

 

[bryce]

Hi,

I used about 20kg of good live rock on top of 10kg of "grot" rock, this provided a very good base and had growth on it from the live rock within a month. I used coral sand from the bag - not live in anyway and everything has gone to plan very quickly.

Having said that, I waited 6 weeks from the introduction of the above before I added anything other than Hermits and Turbo's. My parameters were fine within a week or so of starting but my wallet wasn't!

Cheers,

Bryce

 

[steelhealr]

I agree with Chac....dense heavy base rock I would avoid if possible. Eg, Atlantic base rock. Saves money but not very porous and very heavy. I don't know if most people are aware, but, you can MAKE your own live rock. I believe people make it out of concrete and pasta...check out www.thelebos.com. SH

 

[Lovesfish]

I just wanted to know if I could use lava rock as a base rock becuase its very porus and would probably take quickly from the live rock.

 

[Opcn]

There are two types of lavarock, the kind from volcanos is not a good choice because of the high metal content, the kind from the garden center isn't a super choice either because its often been sprayed with chemicals, you can however make your own live rock, somewhere around here theres a topic on it.