Live rock?

[eekball]

When we set up our 75 gal SW tank, we went to Reeds and Rocks and purchased 60lbs of Lace Rock. It has been in the tank for 3 months & is currently covered in brownish/orange algae.

What's the difference in this and Live rock? What about dead dry rock base?

 

[Thumper]

As far as bio filteration it's just the same as lr once it's been in the tank a while to become live as far as bio filteration goes. Now as far as coraline algae goes you will have to add some lr with it or come up with something that has it on there to seed the tank. The algae your talking about having on your rock now is not coraline algae,

 

[eekball]

We WANT coraline algae? Can we get a small piece of live rock to put in the tank with the lace rock, etc to "seed" it??

What color is coraline algae?

 

[mybug]

The beauty of coraline algae

Is that it looks great and it competes for the same nutrients to thrive as unwanted green and other bothersome/ugly algaes.

There are some who have seeded their tanks with coraline using products like 'purple headstart' or something like that. Most place coraline covered live rock in to see their other less expensive base rock.

Coraline algae is colorful and very hard. Purple and red most often.

 

[malkore]

purple, red, green, even orange.

Live rock also tends to have hitch hikerse - feather dusters, spaghetti worms, bristle worms, crabs, etc...
many are reef safe...some are not. But it's a nice bonus. Plus that stuff won't develop otherwise.
I keep findind new stuff in my tank, even though it's been setup 7 months now. Live rock is cool

 

[Thumper]

Yes you can get a small piece of lr to seed your current rock but I would opt for more than one piece if it's pretty small stuff. Keep you alk, and ca accurate and presto, a couple months you will see it start to take off.

 

[RMPD109]

Go to www.garf.org and look at the garf grunge. It is a LS activator but also has several types of coralline in it as well. It will seed the rock with coralline and it wont add too much clutter to the existing rock.