Base Rock Question...

[pshea]

Hello all, I am currently getting ready to do a 180G fowlr tank with a 75G sump and am going to be stocking it with angels, my question is how much base rock can I use to mix with live rock? do 100 lbs of base with 50lbs of live sound like a good combo.
I am in no rush once this is up and going, I plan on having it running for about 6 - 8 months before I put any angels in. Will prob put a school of 5 Lyretail - Anthias in after it is cycled.

The equipment will be:
180G with dual over flows
Dual 1800 GPH return pumps
75 Gal sump refugium
300 GPH Skimmer
36 Watt UV light
750 watts of M/H lighting
Alge scrubber of appropriate size

[Nano]

probably, if you look in my signature, I did a mix, I think you could get away with that but perhaps some one more experienced will confirm that

Edit:
Oops scrap that I change my signature lol. The people posting below are very smart, they know what they are talking about

[The Grizz]

If its dried live rock it will seed eventually from your existing LR. Try and find base rock that is not heavy & dense, if it's some what pores it will seed easier. If its just going to be a FOWLR you will be good with your plan.

[asylumdown]

I agree with Grizz. If you're talking about using a product like Marco rock you should be fine. In fact, if you're only going to be doing FOWLR, you probably don't even need any live rock at all unless there's something specific you want beyond filtration that comes with it. You could do 100% dry rock, toss in a bunch of raw shrimp and a couple vials of Start-up from Prodibio and in a couple of weeks your rocks would be 'live' enough with nitrifying bacteria to support a small school of anthias. After that, those rocks will behave just like any other kind of aquarium filter; the bacteria population will grow to match the size of the food source, so if you added fish slowly, you'd likely never have a problem.

Of course you wouldn't have anything else in your tank except rock (and I assume sand), bacteria, and fish, so if you wanted more biodiversity than that you'd need to add live rock, sand from someone else's tank, or some of the live pod cultures you can get these days. However, with the addition of live rock or sand from someone else's tank comes the ever present risk of introducing all sorts of nuisance species of algae that your angels might not eat. It would also be a lot cheaper.

But the moral of the story, if your goal is only to provide filtration to remove ammonia and nitrite, buying live rocks isn't necessary at all. You could even just add the raw shrimp all by themselves and the dry rock will eventually cycle (nitrifying bacteria seem to be able to appear magically out of the ether whenever there's a food source for them), it just speeds it up to a time scale that's comparable to letting live rock cure when you add a product like Prodi-bio, or this stuff: https://drtimsaquatics.3dcartstores.com/8-oz-One-Only-NaH2O-PURE-Live-Nitrifying-Bacteria-_p_50.html

[eli@fijireefrock.com]

I will have to agree with above post.
I would sugest using Marco rocks as your dry rock (a very porous rock) then seed it with few pieces of live rock for a more diverse life. Few weeks later and its live.
I always suggest for those buying the rock from me to have a 30% live rock(smalle to medium piece) spread across all the dry rock untill ready then rearrange the rock to your liking.

[pshea]

OK thanks guys this is good feedback. I was looking at getting my base rock from Go Reef, it is the reef key largo and there is some Caribsea South Seas Dry Base Rock , as I was planning on getting alot of my equipment from there.