how much rock is too much or too little

[dreamelissa]

I'm just curious.. I've seen people pile and pile up the rocks.. I have a 20g and I'm ridiculously new to all this but so far the last couple months have been a great learning experience. we test the water and do water changes and feed according. but I just want to know if we should have more rock in the tank.. we want to add coral in the future. so I wanted to know the "rules" if there were any..

20g 24x12.5x19

 

[bduni50]

Need about 1 to1.5 pounds per gallon.

 

[dreamelissa]

oh okay well snappp I have lots more rock to get. I should get it all and settled before my coral, correct?

 

[Macscale]

The tank should cycle and all before getting any livestock. You can buy dry rock as it much cheaper, and will become live anyway.

 

[bduni50]

The tank should cycle and all before getting any livestock. You can buy dry rock as it much cheaper, and will become live anyway.

+1. You should do lots more search before putting in any livestock. You have it started but need to get it good and cycled. With plenty of lr. Research then research some more. I've been reading for two years and just started my own tank. Still learning and tons of questions daily. Good luck and can't wait to see your completed tank.

 

[Bectan01]

There seems to already be livestock in the tank. Can you find fully cured live rock? You can add that to an already cycled tank, I would still do little bits at a time though. The live rock provides a lot of your biological filtration, the more live rock the better I say!


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[dreamelissa]

There seems to already be livestock in the tank. Can you find fully cured live rock? You can add that to an already cycled tank, I would still do little bits at a time though. The live rock provides a lot of your biological filtration, the more live rock the better I say!


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

yeah there's livestock.. we cycled the tank with these rocks and waited 2 months before putting anything in the tank to be safe.. but now I realize that I really want more rocks.. so yeah I was gonna look for cured rocks to put in. I just didn't know if there was a specific amount I should have put in at the initial time of my set up.. now I regret it.. I don't wanna hurt my ocellaris.

 

[BigRedsReefs10]

Just get dry rock or artificial rocks. They'll have nothing on them to die and cause a spike and will be colonized with bb over the next few months. Don't add any additional livestock for a few months so your bio filter can build up. Only thing to check for is phosphates, dry rock can leach phosphates sometimes.
Edit: rescaping will stress out the fish so make a plan before you put it in the tank, and go as fast as possible. And don't expose any of the rock currently in the tank to air.

Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[dreamelissa]

+1. You should do lots more search before putting in any livestock. You have it started but need to get it good and cycled. With plenty of lr. Research then research some more. I've been reading for two years and just started my own tank. Still learning and tons of questions daily. Good luck and can't wait to see your completed tank.

oh I felt I did. i knew this was gonna a huge responsibility.. but I guess I definitely should have read some more. I fell in love too fast with the hobby.. I'm just glad there's sites like these. and my lfs is amazing.. I go to her almost 3 times a week just to ask her questions and to make sure my water is perfect.

and I promise I cycled the tank fully before putting anything in the tank, I just regret not having put more live rock at my initial set up. now I'm gonna have to find some cured rock.. I know I'm gonna need it.. bear with me ?. haha thanks so much tho.

 

[dreamelissa]

Just get dry rock or artificial rocks. They'll have nothing on them to die and cause a spike and will be colonized with bb over the next few months. Don't add any additional livestock for a few months so your bio filter can build up. Only thing to check for is phosphates, dry rock can leach phosphates sometimes.
Edit: rescaping will stress out the fish so make a plan before you put it in the tank, and go as fast as possible. And don't expose any of the rock currently in the tank to air.

Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

awesome, thank you so much. definitely just screen shot this so I don't forget anything.
and I definitely don't wanna do anything to stress them out. thank you!

 

[AZdogpatch06]

Essentially what I did in my original 10G nano tank was I bought one giant piece of live rock from the local pet store and I did a fish-in cycling; at the time I didn't know what I was doing and I realized later that it was very cruel. But back to the rock, I just added some dry lava rock off the shelf from Petco. The beneficial bacteria will propagate on the rock as others have said. I cleaned the rock well before adding it to the tank. Also, I'm just curious how you cycled your tank with those rocks? You would have had to introduce a source of ammonia to start the cycle.

 

[Mebbid]

Even if you buy dry rock you should cure it. When I bought some dry rock it made my ammonia skyrocket higher than my test kit could read. Thankfully I had decided to soak it before putting it in my reef.

 

[Macscale]

Even if you buy dry rock you should cure it. When I bought some dry rock it made my ammonia skyrocket higher than my test kit could read. Thankfully I had decided to soak it before putting it in my reef.

Then it was live rock that was dried out. All the organics weren't rinsed out and that is why it sky rocketed. Basically it wasn't man-made rock which is normally good.

 

[gleach]

1 lbs per gal.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[Mebbid]

Then it was live rock that was dried out. All the organics weren't rinsed out and that is why it sky rocketed. Basically it wasn't man-made rock which is normally good.

It was dry rock from bulk reef supply. It was never in a tank before. There's some locked in organics that will release ammonia from just about anything that's not man made dry rock.