Using dried up liverock?

[transientgravity]

Hey everyone this is my 1st post under this name. I was registered before as reefdood but I forgot my password and my eMail addy on file is no longer valid. But anyway I want to set my 30 gal back up for a pair of clowns and an anemone. I have three 3' VHO bulbs, a 175 12000k bulb, a 1/4 hp chiller, 20 gallon sump, wavemaker, and will be using a bakpack IN the sump. Same setup I had befor withthis tank and stuff was growing to unreal proportions. It crashed while on vacation in 01 and I haven't had the $$$ to redo it.

Anyway I have like 100 lbs of dried up liverock. Can I use this for most of my tank's rockwork with a deep livesand bed, and a few small LR pieces from LFS that is mostly purple and pink with coralline? I know the coralline will spread, but what should the process be from new tank filled with saltwater only to putting the rock in? Thank fellas. I'll be artound quite a bit. And ima try to get my old handle back.

 

[Rikko]

Base rock will become live rock given seeding (some live rock) and time.. The debate that's going on is how well it is seeded and just how long it takes. Generally the people who spent all their money on LR say "you can't duplicate it with base rock" and the people who went and bought base rock said "well I use it and nothing's died". Clearly tremendously scientific arguments.

The bigger question here is biodiversity - how much micro (and macro, for that matter) fauna can you achieve in the base rock? It depends a lot on what is in your seed rock and how well it is able to transfer into other pieces of rock. Coralline and nitrifying bacteria are easy enough, but I've yet to see a good answer about the anaerobic bacteria that are variably susceptible to oxygen.. How are they moving from rock interior to rock interior?

The short answer to your question is yes.
Perhaps a more interesting question is how well it works... And I don't think anybody has a complete answer just yet.

 

[Fatal Morgana]

Since you are not new, I am going to save my welcome for someone else. Send a PM to Len or liquid. They can get your old handle back.

As for the use of dried rock, use it like you expected. Just put them in and add some nice live rock when thing are cycled (dried rock may have organics just like uncured live rock.) Monitor it like uncured and add livestock when all parameters are good to go. You know what you are doing, so I am not going to bore you on these. Good luck and have fun.

 

[reefdood]

Thanks guys, Len hooked me up.

I'll be running the tank at least 8-10 months before I start adding actual livestock so hopefully the live rock will fully spread to the baserock in that time. I'm going to keep a high alk. and Ca. level with B ionic so the coralline will prolly be everywhere. I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss any new techniques or thoughts on the subject.