Rocks and its inhabitants

[peas]

just curious but can a live rock with inhabitants benefit your tank in anyway and if they dont have stuff on it what can it do because i used to have these worm things on it,other stuff, and like a microscopic hermit crab or something that my fishes ate and now there isnt anything living on my "live" rocks
btw you know the rocks that people use in freshwater (the dark brown colored ones)...well can i put it in my saltwater tank???

[melosu58]

Put some new LR in the tank and the small life will migrate to the other rock. It`s called seeding. I cant comment on the FW rock because I dont know what it is composed of.

[roka64]

LR is very important in the biological filtration process. It will house your beneficial bacteria. The other stuff is a bonus.
I would not put FW rocks in your SW tank, unless you know it does not contain any heavy metals.

[Ziggy953]

I agree with Roka. I wouldn't put those rocks (FW) into a SW tank.

How long has your tank been set up? What do you have in it? What kind of filtration do you have? What are you water parameters ammonia, nitrAte, NitrIte, PH??

[cmor1701d]

The rock used in marine tanks is generally broken bits from coral reefs. It is very porous which allows water to flow through through it. Being porous also gives it tremendous surface area. Bacteria live on the surface area of the rock. The brown rocks used in fw tanks do not have any where near the suirface area of the rock used for LR. It therefore has little benefit and could, depending on its makeup (heavy metals) be detrimental.