Newbie Live Rock Questions

[babyduke]

1) If I find some nice porous lime or lava rocks, can I make a live rock out of it?

2) I see that I'm supposed to clean the live rock well if I ever buy some. Some people even suggest brushing thoroughly with a toothbrush. Wouldn't this method not only clean off the dead matter but healthy ones too?

3) Oceanpro sells Hawaiian baserock for cheap and claims that it's got all the beneficial microorganisms as the premium rock but just not as colorful. Is this pretty accurate?

4) Also currently I have a fish only tank with regular sand that I bought from Home Depot which have been running for over 2 years w/o any problem. Is this sand now "live"? Also is "live" sand required when using liverocks?

 

[BigBeginner]

I too am a noob, but i will try to answer your questions from my limited knowledge. If im wrong, someone will correct me

1. You could, although i dont know if the lime or lava rockness will affect your water

2. Yea it would but i guess its better to get rid of the dead even if it costs some healthy stuff, and remove any protential bad hitchhikers (or good ones =\)

3. I have never bought rocks from oceanpro so i dont know about this

4. Most likely, if you had some live rocks to seed the sand, it should be "live" after 2 years. And no, LS isn't required for LR

 

[Colin_T]

1) limestone and sandstone can be used (not sure about lava rock but there is a thread around here somewhere that tells you all about rocks in tanks) as long as it is clean and free of chemicals.

2) I’ve never heard of scrubbing the new live rock to make it clean. Normally you rinse it in a bucket of seawater to remove any loose stuff and then put it in the tank. If you attack it with a scrubbing brush you will get rid of most of the nice stuff living on it.
You should also check the live rock for crabs and mantis shrimp before you put it in the tank.

3) Base rock is cheaper than decorative live rock because it doesn’t have as much nice stuff on it. The real expensive rock comes from the top of a reef and is covered with coralline algae, small corals, worms, algae and all sorts of other things. The base rock comes from deeper water or the bottom of a reef and has very little growing on it besides bacteria and a few worms.
A lot of people use limestone as base rock and then put a few nice pieces of live rock on top.

4) Live sand is sand that has been in a tank for 6 months or more. You don’t need live sand as any substrate will become live over time. You only need an inch or two of substrate in the tank.

 

[BigBeginner]

Yay, i got most of that stuff right =]

I have heard of scrubbing rocks, but i would never do it

 

[babyduke]

Thank you all for the info. I've been running a setup w/tacky looking artificial coral decors with fish. Other than the tedious maintenance part, I've been successful. Is live rock going to make it that much easier and be worth the $? Also would it help keeping the nitrate level down?

 

[BigBeginner]

Yes, and i think it is worth the $

I dont know if LR affects nitrates. I know it acts as a filter, i just dont know exactly what it filters, ammonia? If you have problems with nitrates, just need to do water changes and/or get some cheatomorpha macroalgae (i think thats right), and dont over feed.

I personly like the natural look of LR and i like seeing what surprises coem out from the rock. I dont think a marine tank is complete without it.

 

[rabbut]

The Live Rock is a full bio-filter, converting ammonia right through to nitrogen gas and oxygen Mature rock will pull the nitrate level down (or slow it's rate of raising at least) if you have enough One thing to note though if you are adding live rock to an established tank, is that it must be fully cured in a seporate tank first, or you will have a die-off in your tank of fish, potentially wipeing it out

If you are going to do a FOWLR set-up, you will need at least 1KG of rock per 10l of water, though 1KG per 5l is the recomended ammount for most set-ups You will also want at least 10X turn-over through the tank If you want to branch into soft coral, you want 20X an hour in flow, and 30X if you are going down the Hard Coral route

All the best
Rabbut

 

[SkiFletch]

If you're having nuisance algae and/or nitrate/phosphate issues and don't want to shell out the cash for LR, my number one suggestion would be to get a hang on refugium (or add one to your sump if you employ a sump). Growing macroalgae really helps with nutrient export naturally and makes a tank much healthier in general.

 

[Colin_T]

Other than the tedious maintenance part, I've been successful. Is live rock going to make it that much easier and be worth the $? Also would it help keeping the nitrate level down?

Personally if you have a biological filter running on the tank (ie: a power filter) then adding live rock won't make any difference to the tank maintenance unless you have a lot of big rocks in a sump with the tank water flowing slowly over and around it. Under this situation the big bits of rock will develop anaerobic bacteria inside them and this will break down nitrates. However, the best way to reduce tank maintencae is to have a sump full of macro algae (Caulerpa) and let it suck all the nutrients out of the water. Then you simply remove some of the algae each week and chuck it on the garden, thus removing the nutrients from the tank.

If you want to get rid of your existing power filter and use live rock as a filter you can. But unless you have a tank full of corals I would bother about it and would save the money to set up a sump with macro algae.