Dry Rock Suppliers
 

Turning to the dark side :n00b:, have owned a fresh water tank for the last 3 year, going to give SW a try. I'm sure this has probably been brought up a few times in the past, but can anyone recommend somewhere that I can pick up some dry rock at a decent price? I am thinking about mixing 40% live rock with 60% dry, any suggestions? Should I go with more live rock or can I get away with less? I am a couple months away from setting my tank up, should I buy all of the rock now and put it in rubbermaid containers to let it cure and give it time to seed the dry rock before my tank is actually set up?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.:biggrin:

Have a look at these

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=71902

Good idea with letting the rock cook for a few weeks. You could go even less live rock and still be ok, but generally the more you have the easier the cycle will go. Make sure you have a powerhead and a heater in there and you'll be good to go.

dry rock
 

try a landscaping place . i picked up some nice lace rock for cheap

The sooner you get the live rock curing the better. I lost 2 months of curing time as I dragged my butt looking for some.

As to the ratio of dry to live, that will depend on how you plan on stocking your tank over the next, say, year or so. The more live, the more livestock you may add sooner.
For instance, in my 75g I'll have 40Lbs of dry and only ( for now ) 14Lbs live, so I'll only be able to add critters that the 14Lbs can support until many months from now. I believe if I was to fully stock the tank over the first few months, I'd need at least 50-75Lbs of live rock. Basically 1-1.5Lbs/g is needed for a healthy, fully stocked tank.

Here's a better idea of my thoughts;
My understanding is 4" of fish per 10 gallons of water, give or take very small or very large fish.
Having less than 1-1.5Lb/g means less than 4"/10g. For at least a year.

You have to decide how patient you can be vs how much live rock you can talk yourself into buying.

Red coral has marko rock for about 3.00 a pound....

You haven't mentioned what size your tank is.
I picked up a box of this and it's quite nice.
Whether you can get it near you without shipping, or if you need enough to justify the shipping ...

I started up my 220g about 9 months ago and mixed 100lbs of nice macro rock (ordered from J&L) with 60lbs. of really nice cured live rock that I purchased from a fellow canreefer. Not even sure if the tank cycled, if it did I missed it.

Everyone has good points,

Though my understanding from Adding LR to Dry rock would be to add the benefical bacteria for to reduce your cycle time. That being said the more LR you add the better and the faster your cycle will be done. As greg suggested if you add 1/10th LR to Dry your cycle will take longer as if you were to add 50-50.

I added about 25 lbs of Dry base rock and about 30-40lbs of LR and I didn't even see a cycle in my 65G.

As for adding Coral / Fish / Clean up crew. You should wait until after your cycle. Some choose to add the clean up crew during it's really your choice I myself would suggest after. As for adding fish and Coral to your system after your cycle do as you normally would. New fish every 1-2 week as suggested I'm sure would be fine.

Thanks alot for the information, it has answered a few questions that i had. As for tank size I am considering a 75g or 90g with a 50g sump, if I have enough plexi glass. Does the type or live rock make a difference in regards to filtering, or do people select rock just based on appearance?

The type of rock makes all the difference. You want a nice light, porous rock. Heavy, dense rock, whether it's live or dry is useless, and will just lead to frustration with your nutrient levels.

The more porous the live rock the better, this means more surface area for benefitial bacteria to thrive

That is not 100% true. Rock that is too porous can be also problematic. Dense rock has the anoxic areas that harbor the bacteria that convert no3 into nitrogen gas.

I mean the structure of the rock itself, not that it necessarily has more passageways etc... though this is important as well IMO. Water needs to be able to penetrate the rock in order for it to function well.

That has little to nothing to do with what makes live rock function.

Interesting, please explain.

http://www.fishtanksdirect.com/Produ...anch-large.jpg
Tonga Branch


http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...k/IMG_0610.jpg
Porous Rock

Tonga branch as far as I know is some of the densest LR available on the market. My one tank had a majority of Tonga branch. Everyone said the tank looks like it did not have 1 pound per gallon, but some of the larger pieces were around 40Lbs! A 40 pound Fiji LR would be 3-4X the size.
Most tanks do not need more surface area for the bacteria that convert NH3 or no2. They process it quite well, and you do not even need LR for this. Bio balls even work for that process. There is then just a build up of NO3 left. The only thing that can remove NO3 I know of from a reef aqaurium is anoxic zones in LR. However if the rock is too porous and there is too much water flow through the rock these zones cannot establish due to the higher oxygen levels.

Personally I have never found the porosity of LR to effect the biological filtration. However I could see porous rock acting as a much better mechanical filter.

So you're saying the de-nitrification is taking place on the surface of the rock? I've never heard of this, I always thought the anoxic zones where inside the rock. Can you point us to references for this, you've got me very curious.

Uhh I am sure I can dig it up. But I think somewhere the point was lost.

The area 1-4" beneath the surface has enough oxygen to harbor the bacteria that convert ammonia and nitrite. Rock that is dense enough or porous and large will have an anoxic zone in the center where nitrates are converted into nitrogen gas.

And yes if you have sufficient surface area in your tank covered in bacteria, that will act as a bio filter. That is the whole point of bio balls.

I suspect the anoxic zone begins much closer to the surface. IMO the bacteria living in the top layer of the rock would use up the oxygen very quickly. I've always had 0 nitrates with my porous, thin, loosely spaced rock, and I like tons of flow.

I'm not sure if any studies have been done on the distance oxygen penetrate live rock, but it would be interesting to find out. Where did you get 1 to 4 inches from?

Well first off you need a very fine sandbed at least 3-4 inches deep to start getting Anaerobic zones. I have seen live rock so porous it almost puts crushed coral to shame.

To say "Heavy, dense rock, whether it's live or dry is useless, and will just lead to frustration with your nutrient levels." is much more of a stretch. Depending on who reads that advice it could be taken the wrong way, when using really dense rock like tonga branch is fine.