Live Rock Question

[Ben13]

OK guys a couple of days ago i went to my LFS and was told for my 100 gallon tank i would need about 50kg of rock, 25kg of live and 25kg of normal reef rock but since ive been looking on here i have seen so many tanks which seem larger than mine with Minimal rocks. Is this 25 kg of liverock really necessary?

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

It is not necessary. Originally it was thought that 1-2lbs per gallon was needed for a reef tank but now over the years we find that is simply not true. If I were you I would add what looks the best and what you like. Is your tank already running and for how long?

 

[harlequinreefer]

Liverock is part of your filtration, I'd say atleast 50lb for your setup but it depends on what type of rock you chose (some rock is really heavy, some is very large but light in weight). Some people put less rock in the display and more in their sump so there is more room for corals to grow and fill out.

 

[SmokeyCFH]

I was once told a good way to set up your rock is 80% base rock 20% live rock...and allow the tank to cycle. I use LR in my sump as filtration as well. And live sand is useless, you pay an arm and leg for "live sand" that's been sitting on the shelf for who knows how long and the temperature changes in route and on the shelf can't be good for anything alive in it.

 

[Ben13]

It is not necessary. Originally it was thought that 1-2lbs per gallon was needed for a reef tank but now over the years we find that is simply not true. If I were you I would add what looks the best and what you like. Is your tank already running and for how long?

My tank is not set up yet but i was just wandering because it is a ridiculous amount of money for it all and thanks for all the tips so far and the information about the sump is very intresting

 

[Lynnmw1208]

I have a 125 gallon tank and I started with 60lbs of dry rock and 6lbs of live rock. Today, 6 months later, all of my rock has turned live and my tank is thriving. I definitely don't think you need a huge pile of rocks in your tank. My aquascape is very minimalistic because I like it that way and when I see a coral I want on a rock, it won't bother me to take the whole thing home. As long as you get really porous rock, you should be fine on filtration. 10lbs of porous rock is much more valuable than 100lbs of dense rock for filtration.

here's a picture for you to see how much 66lbs of rock looks like. I have pukani dry rock as well which is very light and porous.

 

[SmokeyCFH]

nice tank!

 

[WrasseSandwich]

I used 100% dry rock and only used about 30-40lbs for a 75g, I'm a minimalist

 

[Scomstock]

I have a 30g tank that has been up for over a year now, and I've always heard that you want to have 1-2lbs of rock per gallon. That being said, for the first 6 months of my tank being up I only had about 15 lbs of rock in it. I never had any problems with it but I like the look of an aquarium with tons of rock and nooks and crevices. So i bought another 15 lbs of rock and put that in. I'm actually thinking of adding more soon, But as i said i'm the person that likes ALOT of rock. I also tend to go a little overkill on my filtration because i feel like you cant have enough. I currently have an Eclipse 2 filter at 270gph and a canister filter at 250 gph. That's over 500gph on a 30g, but can you have too much filtration ? I think not...:wink:

 

[Ben13]

wow thanks for all the feedback guys, Lynnmw1208 really inspired by that, pretty sure i might try something similar would save alot of money but how much time around did it take for it all to go live rock?

 

[shred5]

It is not necessary. Originally it was thought that 1-2lbs per gallon was needed for a reef tank but now over the years we find that is simply not true. If I were you I would add what looks the best and what you like. Is your tank already running and for how long?

It used to be true because we used to rely more on biological filtration. Remember allot of these rules were made a long time ago ..
Now a days we have protein skimmers and skimmers that are far more efficient, we have fuges, etc. so we remove more waste before it has a chance to break down. The berlin method of keeping keeping is where allot started changing.

Dave Polzin

 

[Lynnmw1208]

wow thanks for all the feedback guys, Lynnmw1208 really inspired by that, pretty sure i might try something similar would save alot of money but how much time around did it take for it all to go live rock?

I would say I started seeing life pop up within 3-4 months. My tank is 6 months old right now and it's pretty much almost all live rock. Coralline is growing like crazy now too I made sure I got 2 fully cured live rocks to start with as well. don't know if this made the process go faster or not.

 

[Raggamuffin]

I would really say it depends on the live rock myself, if you tried stuffing even 50 kgs of BRS Pukani dry rock in there you would never be able to fit a shrimp in your tank, but 50 kgs of fiji would look fairly minimal because of density. I have seen some "live rock" that 50 kgs might buy you 2 rocks as well, frickin concrete blocks....


As an example I bought 12 kgs of Pukani rock for my 40 gallon tank and didn't even use half of it.

 

[spscrazy]

when I started my reef 4 years ago I was told 2 lbs per gallon for my 95g I bought 175lbs my tank was crammed full never could get enough flow & my nitrates would never go under 40 about 6 months ago I got tired of all that rock was so cluttered looking and everyones tank pics that I liked didn't have all that rock so I took maybe 50lbs or so out nitrates dropped to 10 in about a week plus now I have a bunch of swim thru places so looks much better!