Live Rock & Invertibraes

[fishtales]

I have recently changed my FO 29 gal. tank to a FOwLR and was wondering about what you may think .

I put in 30 lbs of southdown sand + 20 lbs of live sand = 4" with 25 lbs of cured LR & 25 gal. of cycled ro/di water.
My is " Will the LR grow okay with critters? "
such as
Sallylightfoot crab
Emerald crab
Cleaner Skunk Shrimp
2 Pepermint Shrimps

The other 1/2 of my is " How long does it usually take to see some sort of growth on the LR ? "
My light situation is a 24" 50-50 pc 55 watts & a 30" single corallife 50-50 20 watts
I also have a seaclone 100 PS (that seems to be working fine ) & a empty fluval canister to run carbon ocasionally with 2 minijet 404s

[fishfreek]

Well the live rock itself wont grow. I mean it wont get bigger or anything. But what will happen is stuff will start to grow on the rocks.

How long that takes kind of varies tank by tank.

Usually the first thing you see as a result of the LR is coraline algae growth.

[d9hp]

Coraline algae is good algae IMO, it has a pinkish to purple look, really cool. I cant find a good picture, Aaron has some good ones though, I think.

[fishtales]

I am adding Kent liquid calcium to raise my calcium levels but was wondering is it possible that my protein skimmer is taking it right out like it would somtimes when adding medication ?

I know the rock isn't going to acctually going to grow any bigger in size LOL

[magyk]

Considering you had a FO tank have you ever treated it with copper based medication just curious b/c I have a fO Tank have used copper based meds and now want to use establish a reef.

if you did use these meds how is the LR holding up

In what I have read and experienced is, try not to ever dose the main tank with meds. When you medicate the main tank, you run the risk or do, kill beneficial bacteria.

Protien skimming I don't believe will take out the meds. I know it doesn't deplete the Cal content, or it hasn't in mine anyway.

If you have dosed the main tank with Copper and want to create a reef, I would do water changes as much as it takes to bring the Copper down to acceptable levels testing with a test kit for Copper. I would run High Quality AC for a few days and change it out and then do it again to rid the tank of left over if any, meds like formalin and what not that may be in the tank still.

After that, just give it time to repair and build the bacteria back up and you should be ok to go...Hopefully the LR is not harmed if medicated is the case. if so, it will become LR again...