How long does live rock last?
- Thread starter AJinNY
- Start date
Craig Manoukian
Well-Known Member
Tarasco
Active Member
From DaveK:
I'm sticking with my existing 15 year old Florida live rock
Yeah, in all honesty, I've only tried switching out rock once so far since hearing the info from Fenner, and I'm not sure how often I'm going to try doing it anymore. Just a pain once you get your aquascape how you want it.
I'm sticking with my existing 15 year old Florida live rock
Yeah, in all honesty, I've only tried switching out rock once so far since hearing the info from Fenner, and I'm not sure how often I'm going to try doing it anymore. Just a pain once you get your aquascape how you want it.
Hi Mike (Tarasco),
I went back and read all the pages Fenner has on live rock. Generally the material is excellent. The sections on replaceing live rock or replaceing it are very small compared to all the other material.
Over the years, I have done a major "muck out" of various reefs I've had. I have noticed that there is a tremendous amount of sediment in and on the rock, and in the sandbed. I'd take a bucket of water from the tank, and rinse each piece of rock out in it. What remainded was like fine sand. I'd also vacume the sand. This was before I switched to d deep sandbed.
I would love to know what it was composed of. It could be just the rock breaking down. It mighlt also be a lot of dead and decomposed material, or it could be something else.
The last time I did this was several years ago, and at that time I replaced my shallow (anout 1 1/2 inches) with a deep sand bed (about 5 inches). I also ran a PVC pipe with holed drilled in it along the length of the tank at the sandbed level. This is on a closed loop. I did this to keep circulation going under the live rock and across the sandbed. My hope is that it will keep the sediment down. So far i seems to be working.
I went into all this, because there may be a lot of merit in makeing sure the live rock is not getting clogged up by sediment it forms. It could be that by doing this clean out from time to time, I have been doing something that has a similar effect to replaceing or "cooking" the rock as recommended by Fenner.
It may be possible the same goal was reached by different methods.
Dave
I went back and read all the pages Fenner has on live rock. Generally the material is excellent. The sections on replaceing live rock or replaceing it are very small compared to all the other material.
Over the years, I have done a major "muck out" of various reefs I've had. I have noticed that there is a tremendous amount of sediment in and on the rock, and in the sandbed. I'd take a bucket of water from the tank, and rinse each piece of rock out in it. What remainded was like fine sand. I'd also vacume the sand. This was before I switched to d deep sandbed.
I would love to know what it was composed of. It could be just the rock breaking down. It mighlt also be a lot of dead and decomposed material, or it could be something else.
The last time I did this was several years ago, and at that time I replaced my shallow (anout 1 1/2 inches) with a deep sand bed (about 5 inches). I also ran a PVC pipe with holed drilled in it along the length of the tank at the sandbed level. This is on a closed loop. I did this to keep circulation going under the live rock and across the sandbed. My hope is that it will keep the sediment down. So far i seems to be working.
I went into all this, because there may be a lot of merit in makeing sure the live rock is not getting clogged up by sediment it forms. It could be that by doing this clean out from time to time, I have been doing something that has a similar effect to replaceing or "cooking" the rock as recommended by Fenner.
It may be possible the same goal was reached by different methods.
Dave
mps9506
Well-Known Member
dah! I can't believe I missed this thread!
I totally agree with Mike here... From a buffering standpouint, I think liverock really does nothing, my tank pH rarely drops below 8.0, so I'm not going to be disoloving liverock any time soon.
As far as the nutrient loading, well, I am a HUGE fan of rock cooking, but only if you do it correctly, which really just means lots of time, AND lots of water changes. As bacterial tugor forces out the nutrients you get a nasty muck on the bottom, that just puts the nutrients right into the water column. Gotta do water changes to remove this and make that bacteria strip the rock clean. I just use powerheads and a heater (the warmer the better to make that bacteria work faster). I change out the water (100%)weekly or twice a week, whatever I have time for.
I don't plan on changing out my rock ever again to tell the truth. I'm hoping to strip enough crap out of the water with my bare bottom, high turnover and oversized skimmer that nutrients don't build up in my system at all. We will see how it goes
I totally agree with Mike here... From a buffering standpouint, I think liverock really does nothing, my tank pH rarely drops below 8.0, so I'm not going to be disoloving liverock any time soon.
As far as the nutrient loading, well, I am a HUGE fan of rock cooking, but only if you do it correctly, which really just means lots of time, AND lots of water changes. As bacterial tugor forces out the nutrients you get a nasty muck on the bottom, that just puts the nutrients right into the water column. Gotta do water changes to remove this and make that bacteria strip the rock clean. I just use powerheads and a heater (the warmer the better to make that bacteria work faster). I change out the water (100%)weekly or twice a week, whatever I have time for.
I don't plan on changing out my rock ever again to tell the truth. I'm hoping to strip enough crap out of the water with my bare bottom, high turnover and oversized skimmer that nutrients don't build up in my system at all. We will see how it goes
Craig Manoukian
Well-Known Member
Makes lots of sense Mike!