How important is LR?

[rjmang]

Currently I have a fish only tank with the standard five. (Lion, Yellow Tang, SFE, Niger Trigger, Puffer) I have heard that you should have 1 pound of LR for every gallon of your tank. Is this much really necessary, and if my tank pH, NO3, etc. "numbers" are good do I still need live rock?
If so will the 'live' spread to existing tank rock?

 

[rjmang]

Thanks. I have about 90lbs of other rock. Maybe I should buy 10-20lbs of live to 'spread'. How can you be sure that the rock you are getting is not caring bad stuff? LFS?

 

[thomas712]

Originally posted by rjmang
If so will the 'live' spread to existing tank rock?
Well the live is part of your tank now, its called bacteria. Bacteria is what makes sand or rock "live" Many folks will setup a tank with dead dry sand and rock and seed it with some live sand and or live rock to help spread the live bacteria, eventually it will all be live.
Live rock can also help filter the water deep in its pores and can to a limited degree help with nitrates, a deep sandbed can further help with the nitrates that can buildup in a tank moreso than the liverock.
Your fish will be happier with live rock, but if you ever have to catch them then you may not like the rock so much because now they have a place to hide.
You can fill the tank with any amount that you like, just keep in mind that your fish enjoy swimming room as well, so filling it to the top would be kinda silly. I personally like half to two-thirds full of live rock.
Thomas

 

[autopilot]

Sometimes sitting and looking at whats crawling on and in the LR can be as much or more interesting than watching your fish. I only bought 10lbs of LR so far but it was full of life and color.

 

[flipper263]

I have loads of live rock in my 120 and still lots of swimming room for my fish. The fish love to swim through the caverns and hide plus it's always interesting to see what is growing on the live rock.
Brenda:jumping:

 

[zap800]

in a few books i have read the "old notion" of 1 lb per gal comes from the use of florida lr. this is a dense rock. stuff like hatian and fiji has more pores and so it is lighter than the same size florida. inturn if you have 100 lbs of florida it is probably the equivilent to about 75 lbs of hatian or 85 lbs of fiji. do you get what i mean?
but thats my $.02