Live Rock

[jsolomon]

Im sorry if this sounds like a stupid question but I'm new to this. I purchased 150 pounds of just regular dry dead rock from my fish store. It was called coral rock to the best of my knowledge. I placed it all in my 92 gallon setup. Will this rock eventually become Live ROck or do I need to buy special live rock?

 

[mr . salty]

It will eventually house anything you already have growing in the tank.Including bacteria,and pods.But if you want it to look like good?real live rock,you will need to add some good/real live rock to the tank.Get about 25% or more of what you have in dead rock,and mix the pieces up.It will also help to speed the process if you place a powerhead or two so they blow water over a good pice of rock.This will help to spread the spores from the good rock to the dead rock...It could take a year or more till you cant tell the dead from the live...

 

[predator]

It will take a long time to seed this rock, even witj live rock. And even longer if none at all. A good sand bed would also help. But if your paitent then your in the clear.

 

[jsolomon]

Right now I also have a crushed coral base. So I take it I am looking at an extremely long time before I have live rock.

 

[kimf]

I bought grunge from Garf.com which has coraline algea pieces mixed in.

 

[broomer5]

I see a lot of folks referring to "dead" rock, and keep saying that it will eventually turn into live rock.
This may just be a question of semantics - but LIVE ROCK in the marine hobby is actual pieces of a natural coral reef in the ocean, pieces that have been collected, cured, shipped and eventually placed into our tanks. It was once ALIVE meaning it was a living coral - and we utilize these once alive coral skeletons in our tanks. It is not really a rock as we know it.
Other rock that we place in our tanks, such as tufu, lace or this coral rock ?? is what I consider rock. It was never alive in the sense of being a living creature, it has very little porosity, no calcium skeleton, it's just a freaking piece of rock.
I suppose you can call it "DEAD" rock if you want to. Personally I prefer the term "BASE" rock.
As Mr. Salty and others have mentioned, this base rock will provide a place for bacterial to grow and small marine critters will live on it. It makes excellent rock to lay down as a first layer when stacking LIVE ROCK.
If your water parameters are in check, alkalinity and calcium level maintained, and you have some true live rock in the tank, live rock that has some coralline algae growth ... then purple, pink and red coralline algae may begin to grow on it, and it will take on the appearance of true LIVE rock over time.
But this by no means that this base rock is now considered LIVE ROCK.
It's very porous