LIVE ROCK RULES: Should the rule for live rock be changed.....again?

[drblakjak55]

I’m a start with dry rock and lots of it guy. 90g mixed reef four years. 100 pound aquascape with 40 pounds Tonga branches holding up the big porous rocks. Tangs flying in and out of big caves covered in corals. Everything goes into QT. Have never had ich or aptasia or coral eating whatevers. Did definitely go through the uglies with briopsis and green hairy algae which has been gone two years once your giant ecosystem sets up in all that rock.

Point is my vote is more rock the easier it is to absorb our screw ups with over feeding our fish who also have dedicated sleeping spots.

 

[H3rm1tCr@b]

Are most hobbyists using enough live rock these days and what are your thoughts?
Depends. I didn't have enough for a long time. So I'm guessing noobs like me are not getting enough of the RIGHT live rock.

Do you have any "rules" for live rock when it comes to your reef tank?
1) The more it looks like it was taken from the ocean, the better. The creatures and bacteria living in and on the rock are going to help your tank immensely.
2) Porous rock is best (more room for bacteria)
3) Hitchhikers are okay! Seriously, people lose their minds when they see a vermitid worm. They coat my tank and the corals could care less. If you do find a destructive creature, remove it.

 

[Doctorgori]

The pound per gallon rule is pointless given the different types and porosity/area of the different rock types ... Hitchhikers welcome. .... mostly

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away people believed the more live rock you had the better! Some said 2lbs per gallon, some said 1lb per gallon was the ticket and some said pack as much as you can get in your tank! That led to some very interesting...ahem....aquascapes. Rock pile is a better descriptor of them! But over the years the hobby has trended away from those rules and you now see tanks with less and less live rock. Filtration has gotten better so many believe less is now more when it comes to rock. But have we trended too far away from live rock? Is it just me or are there more and more algae horror stories? Let's talk about it today!

1. Are most hobbyists using enough live rock these days and what are your thoughts?

2. Do you have any "rules" for live rock when it comes to your reef tank?


@Ricardo Prata's beautifully minimalist aquascaped tank!

1. Are most hobbyists using enough live rock these days and what are your thoughts?

yes. Their tanks or as they say, the proof is in the pudding. Their display tanks say a lot

2. Do you have any "rules" for live rock when it comes to your reef tank?

My my water volume is approximately 95 gallon, I added extra sump and I believe I'm using proximately 20 lb dry Rock, and the rest are 70 Pacific oysters. 4 lbs miracle mud that's one year old,
I just tested my perimeter 30 minutes ago

SG 1.025
PO4. .O3-.04
PH 8.2. night PH 8.0
NO3. 5 mg/l
No macroalgae in system
Heavy feeding

 

[themcnertney]

Less is more.

 

[musicreef]

I started my first reef tank in 1993, a 29gal. I upgraded to a 75 gal. in 1995 and had it until the summer of 2003 when I suffered a total tank crash due to an extended power outage during a heat wave.
I had at least 100lbs. of Fiji live rock. I was running what was called the Berlin method which consisted of a sand bed, live rock and a skimmer. I had 40 or 50 corals (lps & softies), about a dozen fish, including 2 healthy Tangs (please don't hate me). I almost never lost livestock or have algae issues with only 2-3 water changes a year.
I still have the Fiji rock but only using about a third in the rebuild I started 10 months ago. I keep thinking I should add more but seeing all the beautiful tank pictures with minimal rock, that might not be the way to go.
I have a Polaroid shot (Google that youngsters) of around 1999 or 2000 and a photo from about a moth ago.

 

[Evanbardiel]

For my first tank i went with 1 pound of dry rock for every gallon of water as recommended online. Im going to buy some liverock from my lfs to use in my next tank and try cycling my tank that way to see the difference.

 

[darrick001]

I don't think we're looking at this correctly. We keep looking at the amount of water in our system. The amount of water we have has nothing to do with the bio load of our system. The water is the buffer between the to. What we should be looking at is how many inches of fish per lbs of rock. Our other filtration also plays a huge roll. Think about what each pert of our systems job is. Ex. Skimmer removes waist before it's broke down,or begs ECT eat some. Then bacteria breake it down some then either other bacteria brakes it down the rest of the way or the refugium breaks it down. This is over simplified but you get the point. The more of each link we have the less of another we need. This is why when some used live rock and some used dry rock they have very different needs. I have about .5 lbs per gal. 500 gal display, 210 refugium, no skimmer no sump or macanical filtration of any kind. Low fish load about 20 inches of fish. So 15 lbs per inch of fish. About 500 snails 100 crabs 103 specie's of coral, 6 BTA, 7 maxi mini, 28 Rockflowers and 40-50 babies.

 

[darrick001]

Excuse the typos didn't catch the auto correct. Bugs not begs. Every inch is teaming with plankton, mysis shrimp. Undetectable nitrate, phosphate but always have small amounts of algae in the display. Also no water changes (Triton). Only when setting up qt for coral.

 

[VR28man]

Strictly speaking, from the textbook understanding that we had from like 1995-2010ish, the purpose of live rock is to house nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria bacteria.

You therefore don't "need" any more live rock and it takes to handle the amount of ammonia your tank regularly produces.

I might say, from this standpoint, if your live rock can process say a reading of 1ppm of ammonia into nitrate in a day, and from there nitrates drop to 0 within a few days without any algae growth, then you have "enough" live rock. Anything beyond that is for decoration or aesthetics. (which are perfectly valid reasons for having live rock).

Thus, I think that 1 lbs a gallon was a very rough and even unscientific rule. That being said, determining how much rock you need to meet my criteria is more art than science, can be really only done post facto (once you've bought rock), and reality is not that simple due to a few further considerations:

- it's very hard to achieve that "enough live rock" equilibrium in a verifiable way. (e.g. what if you run a skimmer, GFO, ATS, etc. which makes the "effectiveness" of your rock much more the realm of guesswork).

- the bans on pacific live rock, the relative unwillingness of LFS' to stock florida cultured rock, and the rise of first dry rock and now artificial "pre-treated" rock (so-called Real Reef and Life Reef) have made many aquaria into relatively sterile environments. This is especially true microbiologically outside of some specifically added cultured strains of bacteria. It's asserted, with some amount of sense and hard data I believe, that a much more diverse set of bacteria, protozoa, and even microscopic invertebrates is a healthier and more stable community.

- finally, I think the consensus has been that if you want to keep corals, you need to keep some level of nitrates and phosphates in your tank. If you keep adding nitrates to your tank obviously my "enough" rating doesn't really work.


It therefore may be only the ammonia processing criteria is suitable these days to judge "enough" live rock. But then, sand can also house nitrifying and denitrfying bacteria. You can also use biomedia (e.g. seachem matrix, marinepure, and several others) in a sump to obtain, allegedly with much more efficiency, the same effect of live rock.


So, it's really hard to say "how much is enough". I would design a 'scape that you like, supplment with the manufacturer's suggested amount of biomedia, and run from there.

 

[Paul B]

I feel enough is never enough because, if you do it correctly, your fish should grow and when they do, there needs to be enough spaces to house the extra bacteria.

 

[darrick001]

I don't think you can have to much as long as you keep good flow. I'm currently getting ready to add another 100-200 lbs of dry rock. I started with dry rock then added my own man made rock. Looked great but had nothing but trouble until I started replacing the man made rock with live rock. The man made rock just can't compete with live rock. It doesn't have the porosity to allow the filtration we need. The porosity and bio diversity is what we need. All rock is not equal. 25 lbs of live rock may have as much filtration ability as 200 lbs of man-made rock. Inside the live rock is where the magic happens.

 

[Royce White]

I just learned today that I wasn't as smart as I thought I was about starting a aquarium, I thought I was smart because I didn't have a lot of the problems that I was reading about here on R2R. I just learned it was because I started my tanks with wild rocks from the gulf and even some from Puerto Rico and I'm sorry to say I didn't get a lot of the wild critters that I read some did get but I did get a tank that seemed to take off smoothly and matured, from what I read, varily quickly. Some of you put it in better words that I about the beneficial hitchhikers. Thanks a lot for setting me straight. If I ever start another reef aquarium it WILL be with rocks from the wild.

 

[Oliver d]

I use live rock collected from our local reefs and add new pieces when ever I need.I also have pieces of dry life rock currently lying in the water in front of my house,its been there for about six months.It will be used in my planned new setup.

 

[JCLZEKE]

Is lack of biodiversity a problem?

I setup my first true reef tank sometime in the 1980s, and used all live rock to do it. (We didn't even realize back then that "dry rock" was an option.) Anyway, I put the LR in my tank, and of course there was die-off, but I think it cured in a few weeks. I knew it was safe to add fish/corals once the water completely cleared, and I could see all the little critters emerging from the rocks: Tiny starfish, amphipods, chitons, isopods, nudibranchs, spaghetti worms, bristle worms, stomatella snails, etc. etc. I also knew the rock contained tons of microfauna that I couldn't see, but I did notice tiny bivalves, bryozoan, sponges, cucumbers, feather dusters, hydroids, barnacles, tunicates, etc. growing all over the rocks.

I'm sure I also got some bad hitchhikers in the live rock, but I don't seem to remember those. (I would have definitely remembered a mantis shrimp. ) But guess what else I don't remember? HAVING TO GO THROUGH THE UGLIES!!! In fact, the first time I ever saw diatoms & dinos was after setting up a tank using all dry rock. I also never quarantined back in the day, and other than Ich coming & going I never really had any fish disease problems. Hmmmm. Could some of these little critters actually be predators of tomonts and microscopic parasites in general?

I once attended a presentation by Tony Vargas (author of "The Coral Reef Aquarium") where he discussed the "European way" of setting up a tank. He uses all live rock, but sets it out of water (on cardboard) for a few hours so all of the "bad hitchhikers" crawl out. The rock is then placed in the aquarium, but is just left to sit & circulate for 3-4 months before adding any fish or corals. (No lights.) You still have to ghost feed, but the reasoning is that this time allows all the little critters/microfauna living in the rocks to propagate without being eaten by the fish. So when you finally do flip on the lights and start adding livestock, this mass biodiversity takes care of many of the problems (like nuisance algae) we commonly encounter in the first year a tank is setup. The tank is already stable, and you don't get "the uglies" because the tiny animals prevent nutrients from ever building up in the first place. And we all know getting a tank off to a good start is one way to ensure it's long term success. I've never tried this approach myself, but it makes all the sense in the world to me.

So how does a sterile tank with dry rock ever achieve biodiversity? I suppose some gets added every time we add chaeto or a coral frag (but only whatever the coral dip doesn't kill). But it takes YEARS to build up to a meaningful level doing it this way. Using all live rock isn't considered practical/environmentally friendly these days (plus the added cost), so what can you do to add biodiversity to your tank? I can think of a few options:

1. Buy some live rock (or even just 1 piece) to mix in with your dry rock. (I'm not saying to buy from here, but this is what I'm talking about: https://gulfliverock.com/premium-deco-live-rock)
2. Buy some mature rock, macroalgae and/or sand from another hobbyist with a healthy, established aquarium.
3. Buy a "reef pack" to add diversity (example here) and/or macroalgae (example here) from a trusted source. Basically, look for critters labeled here as good: https://www.lionfishlair.com/hitchhikers-guide/

Ideally, you would want to add any of the above while still cycling (or at least 6 weeks before adding fish due to parasite tomonts). Fortunately, most of the aforementioned critters are tolerant of ammonia. Even if all you can get is 1 or 2 small rocks, the biodiversity should quickly propagate to the rest of the tank.

I’m trying this , restarting a 72 gal tank, original live sand vaccume

 

[JCLZEKE]

I’m trying this, 10 yr old 72 gal tank vacuumed original live sand , rock removed washed,dried, some new cured rock, red flex reef sump 100 RODI Water, WHY DO I STILL HAVE HIGH NITRATES?

 

[ThePlummer]

I’m trying this, 10 yr old 72 gal tank vacuumed original live sand , rock removed washed,dried, some new cured rock, red flex reef sump 100 RODI Water, WHY DO I STILL HAVE HIGH NITRATES?

I was in the same boat as you with 30 year old rock and 10 year old sand..... Tried EVERYTHING.... Then a young lady at the local LFS pointed out Dr. Tim's Waste away.... that did the trick, but it took about 6 weeks. Now, I'm a big believer in it, and we use it as a maintenance dose about once a month.

 

[Tmtdvm]

I appreciate the old school live rock method however availability is hard to obtain. These days the technology, additives and know how has made reefing a lot easier especially with me being a newbie. The biodiversity of live rock is unmatched but these day we seem to gravitate towards clean lines and minimalistic aquascape. Regardless, I still tried to stay with the 1lb/g of rock to my new tank build. I actually ended up with about 100# of life rock for my 120g tank. Essentially, I figure the more surface area for the microorganisms, the better. It will achieve the biodiversity quicker for the reef tank while minimizing complications and maximizing homeostasis.

 

[ca1ore]

My only ‘rule’ is to use as much rock in the display to achieve the aesthetic I’m looking for. Invariably, this is enough to also meet the needs of an adequate nitrogen cycle. I test periodically for ammonia/nitrate to be certain.

Amount of bioload (only modestly correlated with volume) and the many different types of rock makes any pounds of rock per gallon singularly useless. Not to mention reef tanks with sand versus not.

 

[liverock]

I am dealing with my 2nd year of dry rock syndrome, won't do that again. Totally agree about years ago adding lots of live rock and having a much smoother start.
I can't believe there aren't more entrepreneurs making light, porous rock, and sinking it. I have learned my lesson and would absolutely buy decent rock from the ocean, and I know there are a few places, but we need more imo.

I can't tell you how many folks have told me this in the last years as dry rock became popular. On reason dry rock came about was a lack of enough quality live rock in the industry. Back in the day there was many folks out collecting wild live rock for the masses. That all ended in December of 1997, became illegal.

That started the aquaculture age of live rock. Same scenario, not enough cultured live rock as not enough folks were willing to do what had to be done to be a live rock farmer.

We have restocked many a tank that was started with dry rock for the issues mentioned in this thread. Your tank will be happier and with real live rock, no doubt.

The good news is there is going to be plenty of the most killer live rock on the planet again. The hard part is finding suitable substrate that works well for colonization. Ken Neidelmier ,<now his kids> KP aquatics and I were using quarried rock from Homestead Florida's ancient reef tract that has awesome shapes and structure for many years. Great stuff.

Let me tell you how much fun it isn't to go into the mine and hand pick each rock when it is 10,000 degrees in the Florida sun. I made 173 trips doing it. Kudos to KP for keeping it up, is pretty much just torture.

Look closely at the rock very porous and an excellent candidate for culture. Like the piece being whacked on....used to take at least 1/2 a day to put 3-4K pounds on the boat, as you had to climb the piles and pick only the qualifying pieces of rock.

As I write this there are containers of Walt Smith rock being loaded in Fiji right now coming this way. I expect by the end of the year we will be ready to rock and roll again!

Richard TBS