Ocean Rock In A Marine Tank

[sorgan]

right the idea of reef bones turning 'live' is a bit of a false hope it will, in time, become full of bacteria and become a good filter but it will never attain the level of life found in real live rock.

your best bet is to find a local reefer who is doing a tank break and buy the LR from them, if not LFS it is.
when you thin what comes out of our LR that we all go SQUEE look at this worm!!!! or wow i have brittle stars/ bristle worms..... you may begin to see that a reef bone turned bacteria colony is not live compared to the good stuff and will not become 'live' for a very long time.

now i would say that LR is the most essential part of a reef tank so yes it is essential in my opinion.

coral wise -
softies have no 'skeleton' so are completly, you guessed it, soft! they are the easiest to look after and take some dedication to kill they are also stunning and amazingly diverse.

LPS or large polyp stony are a hard coral, they produce a calcium skeleton to hold themselves up, they need (mostly not all) good lighting and decent water, ammonia and nitrite at 0 ppm and nitrate at under 15ppm, they also need calcium over 440, most will be glad of a feed once a week also.

SPS or small polyp stony are the reef builders, they are chunks of rock (calcium skeleton again) that bristle in tiny polyps, they need high lighting and superb water quality, these are not for beginners.

so to start go for the softies.

 

[rdp50734]

I had every intention of going for the softies, just curious as to the different names.

 

[sorgan]

You ready?
Softies you have leathers, colts, Xenia, zoa's, riordia shrooms, star polyps, colony polyps and many others but those are the commen ones.

 

[rdp50734]

Lol, I did mean the different names of types ie LPS, soft, hard there were a couple of others I saw but cant remember off the top of my head!

But the names of the softies is useful too!

 

[seffieuk]

right the idea of reef bones turning 'live' is a bit of a false hope it will, in time, become full of bacteria and become a good filter but it will never attain the level of life found in real live rock.

Ok, there are two points you mention, both are incorrect imo:

'Reef bones turning 'live' is false' - this is incorrect, Reefbones can and will be live given the correct conditions and time.

'Never attain the level of life found in real live rock' - reef bones can attain the same level of life over time

I suspect what you meant was, give the reef bones time and they will end up 'live'

Seffie x

 

[Pearsondesign]

for an example, i have a reef tank with only soft corals, and 2 hard ones

pulsing xenia (right side of pic)

finger leather coral

leather coral

kenya tree (old pic, much much bigger now )

trumpet coral (hard) (top left ish of pic, has green centre like a clam)

Acropora (hard)

mushroom polyps

green star polyps (with blue lights on at night)

random polyp things, not sure of proper name though

Zoas (my fave)

i do have others but i dont have pics right now though

and my full reef shot (sorry its so blurry, i used the same camera but for some reason it came out all rubbish )

 

[sorgan]

seffie my point is that reef bones will only be colonized by the stuff we have in our tanks, anything that is not in our tank will not colonize a piece of porous rock you stick in there. the term live rock seems to spring images of chuncks of rocks that are teeming with life to mind, but, unless these are actually from somewhere that has great bio-diversity (ie the ocean) they cannot have the level of life that a bit of rock found off the coast of fiji will have.

once again reef bones will become a good place for bacteria to thrive and will eventually have pods and worms (and of course pests)set up shop but IMO this is not the same as actual live rock that is full of diverse little critters and bugs, corals, shrimps, nems etc.

i suppose it depends on what your after.

 

[seffieuk]

seffie my point is that reef bones will only be colonized by the stuff we have in our tanks,

Ah, I see what you were trying to say now and agree totally

Which brings up another point, it is a really good idea to swop rock with a mate, so that you get even more diverse life (however, some not wanted )in your tank

Seffie x

 

[sorgan]

Indeed, shame I have no mates in Fiji or Cali. Or Oz for that matter.