Can too much base rock kill your live rock?

[Cafe Jeff]

Dear All,

I was in my local LFS today (rhymes with Pig Pals) today and was told that if I didn't buy live rock in a ration of at least 2 to 1 to baserock, I would kill off the live rock. This seems, on the face of it, to be rather counter-intuitive to me, but I would certainly prefer not to kill my live rock with too much baserock. Fortunately, it's all hypothetical at the moment as I haven't yet purchased any live rock for my new 20 gallon office aquarium.

I wonder if 1) this is true and 2) where is the best place in Toronto (or Canada by mail order) to purchase live rock. The Fiji live rock for C$8.99 at Pig Pal's looked distinctively uninteresting. I didn't bother to ask if it was cured or not. As the aquarium is not yet even populated with bacteria, cured or uncured is not a concern.

All the best. Jeff

[first-timer89]

I would not trust the store! MY nieghbor has a 200 gallon fowlr and started out with 4 pounds of lr and 250 pounds of base. It looks asome an I would assure u that nothing died.

[MACATUA]

Sounds like bull to me. The more live you had, the faster the base would populate. You could even do all base rock and have the eventual "live" rick, just no pretty coraline. I am seting up a new 125, and am gonna use 100 lbs of base and about 50-60 of live from my established tank. But I bet I could get off with only some of that and be ok!

HTH

[Cafe Jeff]

Interesting.
Very interesting.
I would so much prefer no advice to bad (and possibly) expensive advice. And this was the store manager.
I just couldn't figure out what the mechanism could be.
Jeff

[loganj]

You can fill your tank with base rock, add one piece of LR, and you will eventually have a tank full of LR. It'll take a long time and you probably won't have much diversity, but it will happen. I think someone wanted you to spend big $$ on LR...JMHO.

[Cafe Jeff]

Thanks for all the help...
That's basically what I figured but I wanted confirmation from a reliable source.
What weasels. I swear I get better service at my local Petsmart than I do at Big Al Bundys. All the best. Jeff

[IfoundNemo]

I went to my LFS to get some BR. The owner/manager says he has no BR to sell accept for LR. After walking around through the store i discovered a big box full of BR in the back.... to make the story short.

BR is $1.50-2.00/lb
LR is $7.00-$8.00/lb

So i can see why your LFS manager wants to lure you into buying more LR. Sounds like a bad business to me.

[Cafe Jeff]

I would feel the bigger idiot if I had plumped for the live rock. It sounds crazy, but I get kinder and better service from my local Petflatulence than I do from le Grand Al. (Notice, I said 'local'--no reason to take this off topic today.) Jeff

[Brad]

...a lot of the LR I've seen in LFS is nothing more than overpriced base rock. I mean, once you allow the LR to sit unfed in a tank for months there's not much "life" left in it. (sure, there would still be bacteria...)

[MACATUA]

Yeah, around here all you find is boring brown "live" rock, no coraline because they keep it in dark tanks, and no biodiversity because they allow the tanks to evap so much i don't see how anything lives.

[Cafe Jeff]

Yup.
That's what I saw here.
Boring, brown and less than lively. Jeff