live rock seeding base rock?

[mwrmma]

i have a 90 gallon tank that i was planning on adding 120 lbs of base rock and adding about 30 -50 lbs of live rock with rubble in the fluval canister and maybe a little more rubble in the hob. my question is: about how long does it take the lr to seed the base rock, and is it going to slow me down in any way? Right now i have 60 lbs of base rock and i was planning on ordering another 60, but if there is a better ratio that you guys can come up with to give me my numbers, i'm open to anything. ive learned so much from hours of reading on this site!!!! cant wait to have it up and running. Thanks in advance.

 

[steve-s]

Bacteria will migrate quite quickly in the main (days depending on nutrient) but slower in the adjoining containers. The life from the LR will take a few weeks and the coralline a few months after chemistry and cycling are done. There is no need to worry about the length of the process and it will not slow you down at all. Once the cycle is done the important part, bacteria, is in place. The rest of the organisms will migrate as the populations grow based on the available space and nutrient.

Cheers
Steve

 

[mwrmma]

are there any special nutrients i could add to make the corraline grow quicker?

 

[steve-s]

Your best results will come from properly maintained chemistry levels (NSW values) and time, the latter being the biggest factor. No matter what you do, it won't really start to get going typically until about after the 6 month point when the tank starts to stabalize and begin maturing.

For the time being let the tank do it's initial cycle, do a large (upto 50%) water change after the cycle and maintain the chemistry after that with regular weekly water changes. Additives at this point and the near future are completely unneccessary and ill advised.

Let nature runs it's course and in no time you'll be cursing it's growth rather than trying to speed it up.

Cheers
Steve

 

[mwrmma]

any thoughts on how much base rock to how much lr? could i theoretically go with like 140 lbs base and 10 lbs lr? I'm not going to do that but in theory it should work right? any benefits to having more lr to start out with?

 

[Brenden]

It would work but it would increase the time it would take to get good coralline coverage. If you buy LR from LR.com you are getting much more that just coralline (starfish, clams, sponges, crabs, etc) It all depends on what you are wanting to achieve in your tank.

 

[mwrmma]

i tried going to www.liverock.com but some weird search website came up, do they have a different url? or is there another place comparable? much thanks.

 

[Brenden]

www.liverocks.com

 

[Phyl]

Exactly what happened to them that they are still OOB?! You could also try TampaBaySaltwater.com. I used 100# of base and 60# of live (LR.com rock). In less than 2 months I had significant coraline spreading and within 6mo you couldn't tell my base from my live.

 

[cmor1701d]

Phyl,

From their website "Due to Hurricane Wilma we are temporarily unable to ship Live Rocks. "

I can't believe you're having the meeting tomorrow while the Giants are on .