Less is more
 

Just wanted to pass on some thoughts on rock. I'm sure everyone is aware of the problems I had in my old 155g. After tearing it down and selling all the rock, I calculated about 287 pounds total in there. This, IMO, is the casue of the entire issue with my tank crashing.

My new 75g has about 70 pounds of rock, with lots of flow and swimming room. Even with this little rock, nd no sand, I have no measurable nitrate and almost no settleing of detritus on the rocks.

Lesson I've learned is to err on the side of caution when adding rock, as too little is better than too much, IME.

Just my thought for the day. Going for a bike ride now, bubye.

Couldn't agree more. Have had great success doing what you describe, Brad. Circulation in and around the open structures is key.

But I also use a sandbed. :mrgreen: Call me a troglodyte.

Well, not that a sandbed is bad, but a lot of the selling of DSB was to eliminate NO3 altogether. My point of no sand was that even without it, the rock removed all NO3, even at less than a pound per gallon.

But ya, leave the 90's behind man!! :razz:

Pics, Brad, pics :exclaim:

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About time some one said that, I agree totaly, you can have the bigest tank around and it is not worth anything when it is chalk full of rock

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To play devils advocate and knowing how passionate reefers can get about the "proper way" to set up a tank, I would like to say that it all depends on what you want for a tank. I personaly got into the hobby for the sheer diversity of critters that are in these tanks. When I look into my tanks I'm not just looking at the corals or the fish, i'm looking at the brittle stars, the worms and the pods and these all come with lots of rock :lol:. I would love a big tank chalk full of rock (and no fish)

Marie, nothing wrong with that at all, although mechanically, the more rock you have, the harder it is to keep clean and well aerated. I had more rock than water in my 155g, and eventually all the life you describe died from lack of clean algae-free rock to graze on. There comes a point where there can be too much (to filter and keep critter friendly).
There is a guidline of 1 to 1.5 pounds of rock per gallon, which is reasonable, I'm just saying try not to go much beyond that unless you've planned flow and detritus removal accordingly. Again, YMMV.

One thing I always thought about a bare bottom tank was, that glass is just ugly. I saw a pic on here somewhere and it was of a bare bottom tank but the bottom was covered in Coraline algae, it looked AWESOME. I could sure go with a bare bottom like that. Just my two cents.

Doug

lol, I'm not argueing with you but that comment struck me as very funny, the critters i was describing graze on the algae on the rock, not on the rock itself :lol:

Marie, the problem was the algae on my rocks killed anything that grazed on it. Watching all my snails just lying there dead wasn't very exciting!! :razz: