A Practical Guide to Live Rock - Selecting, Buyings, and Curing of Live Rock For Marine Aquariums
A simplified guide to selecting, buying, and curing live rock for the saltwater aquarium. Includes information on equipment, types of rock, and cure it safely for your marine reef tank.
Live rock is the cornerstone to modern reef keeping. The filtration
it provides, is more complete than a room full of equipment. There is a
lot of misinformation circulating, so here are some guidelines on
buying and curing live rock.
The structure and porosity of the
live rock is key. The amount of life the rock is shown with in pictures
is dead by the shipping and curing process, so don’t focus on it. Live
rock is re-colonized by the flora and fauna surrounding corals, that
are added later. These corals are shipped in water, and have diverse
but small amounts of life.. If a minute creature finds a food source in
an aquarium, then it’s numbers will explode(whether you want it to or
not). Other good means of recolonizing live rock are macro-algae and
bits of sand from established tanks. Selecting live rock should be for
many holes, valleys, and ridges that provide a variety of homes for
good bacteria and micro life.
Curing live rock should be done
with a good skimmer and lots of circulation in spare tank or rubber
maid container. Leave the lights off for 4-6 weeks to stop micro algae
from growing, and use carbon to absorb organics and smells leaching
into the water. After the curing is done, shake off the detritus in
saltwater, and add to the display tank.
You can save money
building your reef tank buying nice and porous base rock for the
bottom layers. Base rock is live rock that has dried out, and has to be
recolonized, but since you are doing that already, save a few bucks.
This rock can be shipped ground instead of overnight, so factor that
into the savings. Fiji live rock is sometimes boulder like and very
heavy per pound. The more expensive live rock( Tonga, Marshall, etc),
ends up providing better filtration and stability for the tank. Also,
the more expensive rock is usually more porous, thus getting more
volume per pound. Buy about ¾ to 1 ¼ pounds per gallon of aquarium, and
your fish might not notice they’re not on the reef.
Enjoy your tank , Intrinsic Reef Design
About the author
www.intrinsicreef.com
Posted
on
Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 4:03 am under
