LR opinions needed

reddfish · 11-22-2004, 01:33 PM

So I'm starting up my first reef, and I'm only planning on having this ONE, so I'm spoiling it. I want to get rock with great diversity of algae, color, shape, etc, and want to know what you folks recomend as the best LR to start off a new tank with. I was planning on ~80 lbs of Marshall island uncured. Has anyone been more impressed with Kaelini, Tonga, Fiji, or does anyone think that buying established and cured LR from a fellow reefer is better off in any aspects?

impur · 11-22-2004, 01:44 PM

I think this is a matter of personal opinion really. I am starting up a 29 soon and will be going with mostly TBS rock. I want all the critters that come with it and hope to get a mantis tank out of it too!!!

Court Jester · 11-22-2004, 02:09 PM

Redfish - I've had Marshall and Tongan, they're both good rock and I don't think that you can go wrong with either. That being said, the Marshall was easier to lock pieces into place because of it's shape. In my opinion, it's also has more nooks that make great places to place coral frags. Again, I think that it comes down to the subtle differences in how the rocks look that sway me one way or the other depending upon my aquascaping plan.

I suggest that you buy un-cured as you'll get the most life from the rock that way. If you do go un-cured, I'd strongly suggest that you do a few things to help the process along and minimize die-off of desireable diversity:

0- Pre-wash the rock in a seperate bucket and pick/scrub off anything black and smelly before placing the rock in the main tank.
1- Keep sand out of the tank while the rock cures.
2- Add additional power heads or other circulation to ensure optimal water flow around the rock until it has fully cured, 1-2 months.
3- Use large ammounts of activated carbon during the first month or two and change it every week.
4- Consider doing large (>30%) water changes each week for the first three weeks.

I know you didn't ask about the above tips but they can have a larger impact than picking one type of rock over another so I thought that I'd mention them.

reddfish · 11-22-2004, 02:45 PM

Thanks for the tips, stuff I didn't know I wanted to know. So my substrate is already in the tank, (60lbs of aragonite), and you recommend removing it in order to prevent accumulation of degrading organic substances during curing (is this the line of reasoning your using)? Do you think the benefit of having the substrate in tank during curing in order to get established bacterial and whatever else (i don't really know yet)colonies going would be outweighed by the issue of nutrient accumulation during curing? Thanks again for the input!

format32 · 11-22-2004, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reddfish

Thanks for the tips, stuff I didn't know I wanted to know. So my substrate is already in the tank, (60lbs of aragonite), and you recommend removing it in order to prevent accumulation of degrading organic substances during curing (is this the line of reasoning your using)? Do you think the benefit of having the substrate in tank during curing in order to get established bacterial and whatever else (i don't really know yet)colonies going would be outweighed by the issue of nutrient accumulation during curing? Thanks again for the input!

I am going to add starboard (the white cutting board material) to the bottom of my new 30 gallon tank due to many problems that sand bottoms tend to have. Although this is a debatable issue, I came to my conclusion based on many reports about sand beds taking a turn for the worse. I like my setups simple and the look of the starboard after it has coraline algae growing is nice...

reddfish · 11-22-2004, 05:53 PM

If I was setting this tank up just to display reef, I think I would be much more open to the idea of bare bottom or alternative. The idea behind this tank has been to display goby shrimp symbiosis from the earliest idea of it, and I don't know how to display these guys naturally without 3" or more inches of substrate. I've ready about using pieces of pvc tubes combined with a little bit of substrate, and I don't think I'm sold on that idea yet. Not quite natural enough for me. The display kind of evolved into having live rock, but then I wanted my live rock to kick ass, so I thought I'd try to keep a few corals with it, then we all know how the snowball starts turning...

format32, I'd like to see the starboard setup once its running, and after some coralline growth. Sounds like an interesting alternative to substrate that isn't as bare bones as algae covered glass.

Court Jester · 11-22-2004, 10:35 PM

Reddfish,
Yes, I was hinting at the un-wanted (in my opinion) DOC and phosphate build up in the sand that you might get with the sand in the tank during the cycle. In addition, the sand prohibits the "extra" circulation that you can get with powerheads during the cycle - unless you like sand blowing all over the tank...

It's not a make or break thing though, I've cycled my tank with sand in when the rock was cured and still have a successful tank. But, I've also had a nagging algae problem that I can never seem to eliminate completely - one which I've always attributed to phosphate locked up in the sand bed from the cycle.

One thing that I didn't list previously but might be worthwhile to do is to use a phosephate sponge during the cycle as well - RowaPhose or Phosban would work well for this...

Krux · 11-22-2004, 10:51 PM

you can toss a single chunk of rock, preferably the cleanest one, in your tank, and cure the rest in another container outside of the tank. this would keep the sand from getting jammed up with gunk. unfortunately this would also take up more floorspace, not sure if that is a problem for you.

depending on your budget, if you have cash to spend and aren't trying to save money by buying bulk online, you can talk to a shop in your area and find out when they are getting their next big rock shipment in, and then on arrival day be there when they unpack it so that you can cherry pick shapes that you want. this will give you the fresh stuff, but will also keep you from being at the mercy of the rock packers. the downside is you will probably pay a bit more per pound. maybe yu can convince them to give you a buck or two per pound off since you are going to use your own space to cure it, as curing in store adds to the cost of the final product.

in my personal opinion, shape is more important than origin. paying a lot for rock from a fancy little island in the south pacific is silly if they all arive the shapes of bowling balls. i would rather take something mainstream like fiji and take time to pick the best pieces to get the shape to my rock structure that i want.

DonJasper · 11-23-2004, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reddfish

I want to get rock with great diversity of algae, color,

Personally I'd not worry too much about that. As the sun rises tomorrow - sometime before too long you'll have some sort of problem that'll cause a mass die off. I gaurantee it. And all your expensive diversity will be dead. Spend the big bucks on you next tank - or restart this new one in a year or two.

Buy the cheap stuff and save yourself some money. The cheapest stuff is base rock. Add some chunks purchased a local LFS's - and wait. If you want to make your own concrete rock - that's fine. But the stuff you can get from hirocks.com was 'cheap enough' for me, and was so much better than any of the concrete rocks I could make.

PS - You may want to prove me wrong and be the first reef keeper in history not to have a major screw-up - ever. I'd accept three years as "ever". If you do I'll stand on a table, drop my pants and sing "You're to Tops" at the top of my voice at a PNWMAS meeting.

reddfish · 11-23-2004, 11:01 AM

ok, so I'm seriously debating at least removing the substrate from my display, the fuge is staying as is, but I can take that offline easily...thanks for the opinions. The phosban suggestion is one I'll be taking for granted as well. gracias!

Krux, (or anyone for that matter), in your opinion, do you think that I have any higher probability of getting higher species diversity on rock from fancy little pacific islands

than fiji or carribean? diversity is really my number one desire (hold the lame jokes, we're talking lr here), so thats the main reason why I'd be prone to purchasing from that location. Is diversity more a matter of established time and patience in a tank (making all my concern a moot point)? I'm just trying to get off on the most colorful foot possible...

I'd also like to avoid as much nuisance aiptasia or aenenome as possible from the get go, is it common to bring in aiptasia on pacific rock?

much thanks again!

reddfish · 11-23-2004, 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DonJasper

PS - You may want to prove me wrong and be the first reef keeper in history not to have a major screw-up - ever. I'd accept three years as "ever". If you do I'll stand on a table, drop my pants and sing "You're to Tops" at the top of my voice at a PNWMAS meeting.

I shall do my best

Illusion · 11-23-2004, 11:38 AM

Ok DonJasper's not allowed at any more of the meetings LOL...

j/k

I am working on a 2yrs right now without any major mistakes to cost me the entire tank... There has been a few accidents where i have lost a lot of corals but a lot to me was about 10 frags... Thre was another time where I used a Rubbermaid tub that was contaminated with something and lost 4 or 5 corals... Nothing major at all... If you read and try and do everything right with patience I dont see anyone really killing off an entire tank to make the LR worthless... There will always be accidents... Some can be pretty major but those are very Rare and not really something someone does on purpose... Only way you can completely kill a tank IMO is adding bleach or ammonia to the tank when its stocked...

James

reddfish · 11-23-2004, 03:19 PM

Hopefully you're on to something James, I've been working/reading/learning on this tank for about a year (13 months actually). Though money was a limiting factor some of the time, and building the stand and canopies and baffles and drilling tanks took awhile to finish (after a few so long you have to settle down and quit altering the sob). I've really been trying to take long enough for me to learn enough to get as much right in the first go round, (with some minor tweaking of the system being enough to get it all fine tuned and balanced) and let as little as possible teach me a lesson the hard way. Ethically, I think we're all against learning through death, and I really want to prove (at least to myself)that if you're careful and patient and knowledgeable it can be done...preferrably the first time. We shall see I suppose, Hopefully you folks are gentle if I fail miserably

format32 · 11-23-2004, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reddfish

Hopefully you're on to something James, I've been working/reading/learning on this tank for about a year (13 months actually). Though money was a limiting factor some of the time, and building the stand and canopies and baffles and drilling tanks took awhile to finish (after a few so long you have to settle down and quit altering the sob). I've really been trying to take long enough for me to learn enough to get as much right in the first go round, (with some minor tweaking of the system being enough to get it all fine tuned and balanced) and let as little as possible teach me a lesson the hard way. Ethically, I think we're all against learning through death, and I really want to prove (at least to myself)that if you're careful and patient and knowledgeable it can be done...preferrably the first time. We shall see I suppose, Hopefully you folks are gentle if I fail miserably

If I were a fish, I would want you to take care of me.

I think people get caught up in general with just the coolness factor, colors and the ocd tendencies of the hobby in general and overlook what they are dealing with. These organisms deserve the respect that you are giving them and I personally don't see this happen all too much in the hobby. At least on the boards I read, I dont see it. In the past, this ignorence has angered me to no end!

Krux · 11-23-2004, 03:52 PM

as for diversity, it really depends on what type of diversity you are looking for. If your game is lots of really nifty little critters running around, normally unnoticed to everyone else, then a sand bed is a great way to foster that. if you want to see a jungle teeming with life, then a refugium is a good way to go. dry base rock will not be "full" of stuff obviously, but if you are really keen on getting a ton of micro critters, you can buy ruubble from a couple different stores, or you can take part in sand swaps, or you can even buy from online places that sell invert seeding packages with several types of pods, shrimp, crabs, worms, etc.

really it all depends on how far you want to go.

a fascinating thing to do is get a shipment of raw, uncured rock direct from a place like fiji, throw it in the tank, and let the die-off start your cycle. as months pass you will start to see stuff poking out of the rocks. this is probably going to be the closest to "natural" as you can get, but it is time consuming, and you can do almost as well on diversity using one of the above suggestions.

personally, i would not go barebottom on a tank unless i was trying to emulate a specific biotope, like a reef crest acro zone (such as i am) or unless i took the 3 or 4 hours it will take to read the entirety of the 4 big barebottom threads in the think tank forum and concluded for myself that it was what i was trying to achieve visually and maintenance wise.

either way, read the threads, go to the think tank, and sort by number of posts. the first 3 or 4 are the barebottom threads, and have a nice free evening, because it will literally take you hours to work through them.