Live Rock Quantity

[FrankP]

I have seen a Live Rock calculator and it says I need about 31kg of live rock for my 225l tank. Does this sound right?

Live rock is betwen £9-£12 per kilo so thats between £279 and £372!

Do most people just grin and bear it or do they buy some live rock and some base rock which can be seeded by the live rock.

If they do this does this slow the maturation process down?

Thanks


Frank

 

[crazyelece]

I used base rock under my live rock so that iy would seed. It seems to work fine, but you don't get as many of the niffty little hitch hikers as you would if it was all good live rock. My suggestion is to grit and bear it if you can, but if you can't base rock is a good alternative. You just can't add a bunch of livestock all at once. You have to get the base rock seeded, almost the same way as seeding a new filter on a freshwater setup. If you go slow though you shouldn't have problems.

 

[steelhealr]

Some people build a scaffolding out of PVC tubing and build the reef around it to reduce the volume of LR needed. However, that may save you money initially but you may pay for it dearly in the long run with regards to poor filtration/denitrification leading to livestock loss. LR is not cheap. If you have time and patience, you CAN make your own but the cycle takes awhile. SH

 

[Chac]

The rule of thumb is usually 0.5kg per gallon

Reef Racking/Eggcrate (as Sh mentioned) will make more efficient use of your LR as it will expose more of its surface area, but you will still need the appropriate qty of LR to take care of your Bio Filtration

Have a look at Reef Bones these can be used in conjunction with LR and will quickly colonise

 

[RoyalGrammaPrincessHannah]

Personally, I dont believe that there is a certain amount. Just get enough to cover the length of the tank, no matter how skinny. Make sure to get rocks that are big and kinda hollowed out in the middle with lots of openings. This assures comfort for rock dwelling fish, like royal grammas, damsels like them and gobies do too. You will also get some cool hitch hikers with these. I once got a serpent star, which I was going to go buy anyway! Now I get to watch him grow from the size of a quarter on instead of the size of my hand on.

 

[Chac]

Personally, I dont believe that there is a certain amount.

Then how do you propose Frank's tank will take care of the Bio-Load, if not by using an appropriate amount of LR

 

[crazyelece]

I believe he is talking about a specific weight quantity for a specific gallon size. It is just a rule of thumb. Different live rock and base rock have different densities and therefore the weight amount will change depending on what you use. Put enough rock work in so the tank looks similar to other tanks you see around. Also you can purchase different things to help seed base rock.