Kessil

LR Question

Reefdad

Reefdad

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I am starting a 75 gallon system and need to stock it with LR. I am upgrading from 12 gallons and have very little LR in that tank so I will need to buy alot. I am thinking a good goal will be 100 lbs. But here is my question. What if I were to buy 40 lbs of LR and 70 lbs of dead rock and were to put it in my tank. Dead rock is half the price of LR so I could save some $$$. Would this be a bad idea?
 
Not at all.. I don't think you need 100lbs in a 75G though. I use mostly dead rock now. Just give the tank enough time to finish cycle.
 
eventually the "dead" rock will become populated with bacteria and there would be no difference between the two...it may take some time, but itll save you a buck..just make sure the rock you get is porus and prefferebly of scleratinia orgin...
 
How much longer will the cycle take? The LFS says it takes 6 months to cure live rock. Will my cycle be that long? If I were to use primarily dead rock how much LR would I need to start the cycle?
 
It doesn't take 6 months to cure LR. Which LFS told you that?

My tanks were ready in 2-3 months. I used 99% dead rock and dry sand.

You don't really have to use LR. Toss in a small piece of raw shrimp. Throw in a ball of Chaeto after couple weeks. Do WC every two weeks.. Test the water after 1.5 months.
 
Well I plan on getting 100 lbs of dry sand and seeding it. If I could get 75lbs of dead rock that would be great and maybe just add 10 lbs of LR. That would work?
 
In my 28 gallon I used about 95% bleached/oxy-cleaned rock and 99% dead sand. I only added maybe a couple pounds of live rock from my 14 gallon and maybe a cup of sand from the 14g and all is well.
 
a full nitrogen cycle normally takes 45 days. The only way for you to tell with your exact setup is to test test test... You'll start to see ammonia first. Once the ammonia spikes then you'll see small amounts of nitrites.. Once you start getting detectable levels of nitrates and ammonia and nitrites read 0, your tank is cycled.. You still have to add livestock slowly so your beneficial bacteria can catch up to the bioload... Good Luck. FYI alot of people start with all dry rock or mostly dry rock. Much easier to control what is going into your tank that way... Marcorock normally has some nice stuff...
 
Today I got 40 lbs of rock. The LFS called it lava rock or concrete. It looks like typical rock and it is very porous. I was going to go buy another 40 lbs this weekend. I like it because it cones in large pieces. If I were to have 80 lbs +/- of this type of rock and maybe 20 of typical LR would I pretty much be set with enough rock to cycle? And would that be a good solid start?
 
I'm not sure about lava rock. I think I remember Gresh posting something about it being bad for reef tanks. Maybe he will chime in.. Something about the composition of it...
 
[quote author=Reefdad link=topic=6421.msg82464#msg82464 date=1235004038]
correct me if i am wrong, but most of the natural reefs of Hawaii are all based on volcanic rock.
[/quote]

True, but with the shear volume of the pacific ocean it doesn't matter. In a closed reef system heavy metals and other stuff can build up killing corals as well as other inverts. Some volcanic rock is OK but most isn't. The lave that formed that rock is a mix of all kinds of stuff.
 
Ok correction. I just got off the phone with the LFS I miss understood. What I gat was lace rock. Which is essentially man made aquarium rock. So It is completely reef safe and I just need to supplement it with LR/DR which ever I choose. SO I did not get lava rock.. ::)
 
And water is there water volume? Multi teared system plumbed together?

There is not easy fix for testing, etc. The best route is the avoidance route, sorry to say :(

post pics :D
 
That's volcanic rock surface mined in Utah IIRC, it's not man made that's for sure. I've sold hundreds of pounds of that stuff in my day :) Great for cichlids! It's on the not so desirable side of "reef safe". It won't kill everything but it can lead to problems down the road especially in the SPS/LPS dept. Moderation is good with it (dilution factor)

FWIW I've used loads of it and even in reef systems that cost 10X what new loaded Toyota Corolla sells for. Some tanks couldn't support any stony coral but grew softies just fine(the really expensive system with 400 pounds of lace rock in it). Others would do LPS fine but stonies never colored up. All had algae problems though and all had large amounts of carbon used in them. We used small amounts in our system at the LFS I used to work at. They did stonies just fine but your looking at 2K gallons and only like 50# of lace in them total.

How large is your tank?
 
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