Amount of live rock necessary for bio load.

[Jetfixr]

I am just getting back into the game. Used to be that a pound of live rock per gallon was about right. I have went with somewhat less this time around, I would say 13 or 14 lbs per a 33 gallon tank. How would you address this? I was thinking about running Seachem Matrix, just not sure how much would be necessary.

 

[ReefRusty]

Could always put a bio black in sump if your sunning one

 

[Subsea]

I am just getting back into the game. Used to be that a pound of live rock per gallon was about right. I have went with somewhat less this time around, I would say 13 or 14 lbs per a 33 gallon tank. How would you address this? I was thinking about running Seachem Matrix, just not sure how much would be necessary.

Welcome to r2r.

While live rock is an active component to biofiltration, coral itself is also an active component of biofiltration as sediment is also its own ecosystem of micro fauna & fana. I use less than 0.5lb/gallon.

 

[MaxTremors]

You could add some marine pure or similar to the sump or back chamber. I will say that I think a 30g tank would look very empty with only 13-14lbs of rock. I’m not a fan of scapes that don’t reach the top half of the tank, without any height you’re not fully taking advantage of all the space in your tank. You obviously want to leave room for corals to grow, but most fish stay fairly close to the rock work (especially fish that you’d keep in a nano), so you might as well use the room, both for biological filtration and real estate for coral.

 

[JNalley]

If you're just getting back into the game, the question is now a whole lot more nuanced than it used to be. It used to be that we would get Walt Smith Fiji and Tonga rock which size:weight was great, so only 1-1.5lbs per gallon worked out well. The rock was super porous and held a great bioload. Nowadays you've got choices to make.

Off The Shelf/Online Purchasing:
Marco Rock: Actual rock mined from a dead reef so has the same/similar porosity as the old Walt Smith stuff

CaribSea "LifeRock": REALLY dense rock with painted on bacteria, if you wanted to run something like this (or RealReef) I'd recommend 2-2.5lbs/gallon as the stuff just doesn't have much in the way of porosity and therefore doesn't host bacteria internally (if you break one open it's all powder that hasn't cured)

RealReef: See above, same as CaribSea really

Cornerstone: Better than the CaribSea/RealReef, has a porous structure, and is a good size:weight, I'd say 1-1.5lbs/gallon of this might be ok

Tropic Eden (Tonga and Morroca (Formerly Pukani)): No direct experience with it, but from what I understand it's the same as the CornerStone with lots of porosity and therefore less dense which means lots of bioload. I will be picking some up to see what it's like in a month or two.

LFS (Not available at all locations):

If you're lucky enough, a lot of LFS's have bins of old rock, I have one that has a bunch of the old Walt Smith stuff as well as old coral skeletons and such, I just pick through their bins and bring pieces home that I find attractive. They're usually devoid of life since the bins don't have lights over them, only bacteria remains.

Aqua/Maricultured Rock:

There are quite a few doing Gulf and Keys Aqua/Maricultured rock ( tbsaltwater.com saltybottomreefcompany.com kpaquatics.com ) where they ship to your airport in bags of water keeping life, algae, hitchhikers, etc. This depends on the seed rock and you'll have to get user experience here for it.

There are fewer doing Australia, Indonesian, etc AquaCultured rock from what I hear, and it goes really fast when it hits shelves (like gone in a day type stuff). No direct experience with these either.

But as others have said, if you're worried about bioload, you can add a marinepure block or cermedia bioballs. They will support more beneficial bacterial colonies.

 

[Jetfixr]

I have actually used Marco Rock. I will probably add a couple more large rocks in the foreground, but I don't expect it to be over about 15 lbs.

 

[polyppal]

I am just getting back into the game. Used to be that a pound of live rock per gallon was about right. I have went with somewhat less this time around, I would say 13 or 14 lbs per a 33 gallon tank. How would you address this? I was thinking about running Seachem Matrix, just not sure how much would be necessary.

Bio media is the way to go. A bio brick in the sump is 100x more effective then all the live rock in your tank put together

 

[Azedenkae]

I have actually used Marco Rock. I will probably add a couple more large rocks in the foreground, but I don't expect it to be over about 15 lbs.

I recently set up a tank with marco rocks, and it seems like it has trouble keeping up. I wonder if it's an issue with the rock not actually from a 'live' reef but instead from land from an ancient system, where it may not be as porous anymore.

Anyways, I added MarinePure biomedia and it resolved everything. While normally I would say live rock is fine, in your case I'd yeah suggest supplementing biomedia.

A single block of MarinePure should be fine. Compact but probs will provide all the nitrification you'd need. That or just two quarts of the spheres. The latter you can very easily fill any filtration system so that's a good thing.

 

[brandon429]

No, water passes over the brick not through it, live rock wins at nitrification because it occupies much more contact zone to waste water


the brick would have to be placed inside a channeling pipe and rounded off to fit the inner diameter before it will do a lick of good at nitrification

There is no reef tank on this board where live rock alone is insufficient to carry the fish bioload, use whatever small degree you want to use. We are trained to doubt bacteria in this hobby so that we prop up a huge supplement market- for bricks, bio balls and repeat dosing of bacteria via bottle. Any seneye owner can tell you of the innate control all reef tanks show over ammonia waste, they don’t need any of the claimed supports where a good proofing device runs


the change to negative aqua scape reefing is a direct result of this fact in filtration. No extra surface area is required to be supplemented in reefing, it’s what we do as trained clickers.

the key detail is the rock needs to be in the display right alongside waste production for immediate contact. If it’s sequestered only down low in a sump it takes longer to contact waste held in solution in the display.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I have actually used Marco Rock. I will probably add a couple more large rocks in the foreground, but I don't expect it to be over about 15 lbs.

I gotta say I do love the shape of that rock, did you make it yourself? its a nice looking tank

but at the same time, there are no hiding spots or homes for fishes and critters, and very little space to mount corals, if you are interested in that. And personally, I do feel that it limits the possible biofiltration and therefore limits the number of fish you can have, but maybe you will be happy with just a few small fishes. To each his own, cheers.

 

[Rmckoy]

As mentioned above .
I believe for that size tank you don’t have enough hiding places to curb stress or aggression in fish .
as well as little places for mounting corals .
As for biofiltration I believe years ago the general rule was closer to 1.5lbs/gal which was a lot of rock limiting actual swimming room for fish and displacing the actual volume .
i believe I am closer to 1lb/gal but the rocks themselves are less dense with more surface area .
whether this is still the case or actually matters its more of a personal preference of mine.

with Little Rocks ( <.5 lbs does it restrict The bio load you can stock ?

would it still process nutrients at the same rate of a system with 1lb per gallon ? @brandon429

 

[dk2nt9]

There is much more than Lbs per gallon, see Berlin method at Seachem website. Extra biomedia in the back chambers shouldn't hurt, may help. Sintered glass (Siporax and others) is more mechanically strong and do not leach Al, comparing to soft blocks (MarinePure and similar).

Add biodiversity (variety of small life forms), in addition to bacteria, occupying porous surfaces, use protein skimmer for dissolved organics.

 

[homer1475]

Sintered glass (Siporax and others) is more mechanically strong and do not leach Al, comparing to soft blocks (MarinePure and similar).

Ummmm......

You do realize marine pure is sintered glass as well?

 

[brandon429]

Hey nice call on hiding niches for fish I’m always analyzing nh3 control

for sure one ping pong size ball in a 120 stocked with queen angels heh won’t be enough, but truly we don’t have a single example on file from any forum where a general amount of live rock in a display is insufficient. Combined with the surface area afforded by corals, the competitive uptake from plants per Tarichas findings there just isn’t an issue with ammonia control in reefing, scanning seneye logs helps but those come from way overstocked live rock setups just the same.

we need a seneye tester to slowly remove live rock in a running display with fish, then when nh3 hits .05 that’s the breakpoint and we can use that model in tank design limits


If we are using even negative aqua scape degrees of live rock its enough to process raw ammonia waste in every case so far.

as a backup or insurance surface area:

folks who have orders of surface area in play / nearly all running reefs/ still come home from vacation to complete fish wipes, the extra surface area isn’t going to stop a loss cascade when they begin either

 

[Jetfixr]

The tank is Waterbox 33gal AIO, the aquascaped arch is done, there maybe a few large marco rocks added in the foreground (haven't decided yet). I am thinking maybe a liter or so of Siporax, Matrix, or some such bio-media to augment the live rock. The plan is for the tank to be lightly stocked, couple of clowns and anemone, cleaner shrimp and maybe one other fish. That's pretty much how my last tank was stocked before I got out of reefkeeping more than 10 years ago. It was a 28g AIO with a diy LED light. As it matured it was pretty much set and forget and was very forgiving when I would have to neglect it for 3 or 4 weeks without a water change due to business trips. Just hoping the Radion will support an anemone.

 

[xiongsy]

The tank is Waterbox 33gal AIO, the aquascaped arch is done, there maybe a few large marco rocks added in the foreground (haven't decided yet). I am thinking maybe a liter or so of Siporax, Matrix, or some such bio-media to augment the live rock. The plan is for the tank to be lightly stocked, couple of clowns and anemone, cleaner shrimp and maybe one other fish. That's pretty much how my last tank was stocked before I got out of reefkeeping more than 10 years ago. It was a 28g AIO with a diy LED light. As it matured it was pretty much set and forget and was very forgiving when I would have to neglect it for 3 or 4 weeks without a water change due to business trips. Just hoping the Radion will support an anemone.

How did it work out with the biomedias and less LR? I'm interested on getting some Fluval Biomax and getting rid of some of the LR. Go for it or no?