Enough live rock??

[North Bay 101]

I have a 46 Bow and a 10 gallon sump. In the sump is a rainbow fluidized bed filter. What I want to do is remove the bed filter. The question is do I have enough live rock or do I need more and how much more? I have about 40 pounds between the tank and sump with 10 pounds of live sand. Bioload is 9 1.5" green chromis and a 2.5" perc.

Thanks for your help.

 

[esmithiii]

IMO, you should shoot for 70 to 90 lbs of liverock. I have 270 lbs in my180G tank.

 

[Anonymous]

70-90 sounds about right. I have 120 in my 75g.

You only have 10 pounds of sand in your tank? Might want to up that too.

 

[North Bay 101]

It looks like the concensus is two pounds per gallon. I guess that I can get a box of rock as soon as I can afford it. Thanks for the quick response.

 

[Anonymous]

I did the same thing with my reef. About 125 pounds of rock total, but only about 50 of those were 'live' when I bought them. The other pieces were completely white 'dead' rock, which now, 9 months later, look as if they came right out of the ocean...inverts, coralline, sponges, etc...

Go with what you can afford. That's what I did. Eventually it all looks the same.

Peace,

Chip

 

[davelin315]

Are you going to convert to a reef? IMO, there's no reason to mess with your tank if you're going to keep fish only. You can always add more rock as time goes on, bit by bit, and then remove the fluidized bed as you go.

Also, if it's going to be a long process of converting, you can always just add dry rock and let it become live. I have very little live rock in my reef, but I have probably close to 150 pounds of "seeded" rock, which IMO is no different from the stuff that you can buy. It's been in my system for years and years (some pieces have been in there over 10 years I think) and has coralline, sponges, all kinds of worms, some pieces have encrusting coral, some are covered in inverts, the only difference is it's mainly tufa and coral skeletons I picked up in Hawaii on the beach in Kona (I think it was Kona). The main thing is you want the bacteria to grow in the rock, aerobic and anaerobic, and if it's porous enough, it will eventually do that. The different life that you find on live rock that you already have will eventually colonize your dead rock as well, and after a while, you'll have your own aquacultured live rock.

[ October 15, 2001: Message edited by: davelin315 ]

 

[Larry Grenier]

If you had a 4" DSB, the amount of rock isn't as critical. The old rule of 1.5 - 2 puunds per gallon pre-date the use of DSBs. You said 10 lbs of sand in a 46? What's that, maybe an inch?

 

[fishfarmer]

I'm wondering do you have a skimmer? Are you going to convert this to a reef or keep it a FOWLR? What are your water parameters now? The more rock the better 1 to 2 lbs per gal, but I would leave space for coral additions. I prefer less rock, more open structure and better flow. I have a 38 gal same dimensions as the 46 gal without the bow, major PITA for aquascaping. I added about 20 lbs live rock, 15 lbs dead, and have slowly added more base rock for coral fragging. Plus the corals I've added come on LR. I do have a DSB in my sump as well.