1 lb/ 1 gal

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sharpie

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Feb 2, 2006
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why do some people say that you HAVE to have 1 pound of live rock for every 1 gallon of water to have a good aquarium? and if it acts as a filter do you still need all that if you already have filters?
 

Tommy Gun

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Aug 1, 2006
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No, if you have filters, you do not need any live rock or live sand at all. I was told that for a tank using only natural filtration, like mind, that 1.5 pounds of live rock and/or live sand would be needed. I have seen a lot of tanks that look more like a freshwater tank than the SW tanks with live rock in them and they are all just fine but need mechanical filters or a sump with all the live rock/live sand in it.
 

sharpie

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Feb 2, 2006
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Tommy Gun said:
No, if you have filters, you do not need any live rock or live sand at all. I was told that for a tank using only natural filtration, like mind, that 1.5 pounds of live rock and/or live sand would be needed. I have seen a lot of tanks that look more like a freshwater tank than the SW tanks with live rock in them and they are all just fine but need mechanical filters or a sump with all the live rock/live sand in it.
so you would still need filters....you would just put the rock and sand in the filter?
 

Tommy Gun

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Aug 1, 2006
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I am not sure what you are asking exactly. If you do not want to have live rock in your tank, or not a lot of it anyways, you would need a filter to keep the water cleaner. I am not sure how you would set up the filter exactly, but if you wanted to keep live rock in the filter, you would want the water to run across the live rock slower than usual so that the bacteria on the live rock can get to the ammonia and nitrites.

The reason I do not know how to set up a mechanical filter on a SW tank is because I do not use one at all. Other than a skimmer, I only use natural filtration in the form of live rock and live sand. Keep in mind that it is not the rock itself that is alive, but called 'live' because of what is growing on the exterior of the rock. If you have enough in your tank, the bacteria can be present in large enough quantities to be able to forgo a traditional mechanical filter.

So, you would need to decide which route you wanted to go. If you are having trouble deciding which is more economically better, then depending on the size of your tank, mechanical filtration may be cheaper at first. However, if the tank is really large, you may end up paying more for a filter than you would for live rock. If you want to save money on live rock however, you can always just buy base rock or 'almost live rock' as it is called near me, and then buy a minimal amount of live rock and cure it all together in your tank. It takes about 12 weeks or so, but you would be able to put fish in the tank before that so long as they are not big waste producers and you have maybe only one or two fish, again based upon the size of your tank, as soon as the tank itself is cycled enough to be able to support the bioload of one fish. I bought my live rock 5 months or so ago and added 40 pounds of base rock to the 90 pounds of live rock and it took about three months before it all looked the same. I cannot tell the difference between the two anymore at all.

The part I like about natural filtration is that even though it may cost more in the begining, is cannot break and I will not have to buy another one to replace it from time to time. It also gives me the ability to add more filtration in a mechanical form later on without having to have a cycled filter media in place.
 

fsn77

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Feb 22, 2006
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Many people also say we should have closer to 1.5 lb / g. It's a general rule, just like any of the other general rules, be them dated or still useful (watts / g, inch of fish / some number of g, etc.). There's so many types of LR, and they all have a different density. One pound of LR "x" can equate to a lot more volume of rock than LR "y" if "x" is much less dense than "y." Does that mean that people are wrong and you should go with less LR... no, it's just a guideline for what has been proven to result in a sucessful tank over a long period of time. Do you have to follow the rule -- certainly not, no one will harm you for not doing it (except maybe your significant other if problems occur and you have to spend more money). Will your tank have problems down the road if you don't -- it's not guaranteed, but many people would bet that a tank that is short on LR and not stocked lightly will have problems or at minimum require more frequent maintenance than a tank having 1+ lb / g of LR and is moderately stocked.

LR is as natural as it gets for filtration. Yes, it can be expensive, and there are ways to cut some of the cost (ie using 50% dry base rock). But, consider the long term picture. LR is a one time cost. Any mechanical filter has the initial cost, media costs, and electricity costs -- not to mention repair / replacement costs if something goes wrong with it.

But, there's more to LR than just filtration. You also get a large area for pods to live and breed, providing natural and what is essentially "free" food for your fish and corals.
 

Wrench

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Sep 9, 2004
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IMO tanks with little or no live rock just don't look right. Live rock serves as perfect filtration and it keeps the fish and critters real happy. There's also a lot less maintenace with a rock tank than there is with mechanical filtration. Only downside is the cost.
 

TKOS

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Feb 6, 2003
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Also standard filters like canisters produce a lot of nitrates quickly. In a fish only system (fresh or salt) that isn't a problem. Fish deal with nitrates in higher levels without issue and regular water changes will keep them low. But many inverts and other creatures like corals do not tolerate nitrates at all. If you want a reef like tank then you will be best off getting live rock and power heads with no standard filter. If all you want is fish go whatever way you want to.

Saltwater tanks are not cheap and you really shouldn't aim for low cost.
 

Tommy Gun

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Aug 1, 2006
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All good points. I should have added the 1.5 pounds per gallon as being the better rule of thumb. In fact, I thought I did but glad to see you pointed that out.

I thnk TKOS is right about the high costs of a saltwater tank, however, as an attempt not to scare you or anyone else away from starting a SW tank, there are cost saving measures you can take and it can be easier financially to spread out costs over a longer period of time. When I first started on my SW set up, I was lucky enough to have run into a pile of money that allowed me to buy it all at one time. However, the advice I got most often was to save money by starting out with a FOWLR tank first and then slowly build up to a reef tank. Like I said, you can always buy more base rock than live rock at first and still be able to keep some fish in the tank sooner rather than later. If a reef tank is your goal, the base rock will eventually become live rock and you will have sufficient natural filtration for corals. It is generally advised to wait a year before going 'reef' anyways since in a saltwater tank, it does not completely stop cycling for quite a while even though the nitrogen cycle is complete relatively early. There needs to be a better balance of different types of bacteria and algea before the tank can completely sustain the more fragile life forms like corals and you need some photosynthisis action happening that will add enough O2 and use up CO2 before you can keep teh tank's water in a healthy balance. There is a lot to consider actually but the point is that you will have quite a bit of time in order to add live rock and live sand (which you can add regular sand and cure as well to save money).

The only problem is that much of this takes time and many of us are not willing to wait very long or spend money on something that is not instantly going to make things look good or to our satisfaction.
 
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