Dipping live rock

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by jason604

My rock work only goes up to half of my tank so I think I need more for higher light demanding sps =).

No, I'd say your rock is plenty high enough. You need room for the corals to grow.

[jason604]

But they not "growing" haha. Got 10 more sps and I need to put them in place without them touching each other. I guess it's time I take my family's advice on "you have enough corals!"

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by jason604

But they not "growing" haha.

Too many nutrients from all that rock you tossed in the sump

[don.ald]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

No, I'd say your rock is plenty high enough. You need room for the corals to grow.

Is there a poll on how many lbs of rock per gal?

[Ryanerickson]

The rock Jason is talking about is from my system I have a 55 gallon sump that is hooked up to a reef flow baracuda the flow in the sump is very strong. Also for water changes once a week the sump gets 100% drained and filled back up in less then 3 minutes. Because of the high flow in my sump there is zero debri in it about 50% off the rock is 3/4 to 100% encrusted in sponge. I totally disagree with getting rid of old rock I actually think a lot of my success with sps is because of all the rock in my system and it's only getting better with age. The pieces I gave Jason were a bunch of smaller pieces as he requested I made sure not to give away my sponge though as he wanted pieces for his display. The rock will not hurt your display and I don't see any reason not to ad a bit more up top. Last month I hooked nick (slyguy00) with 30-40 pounds for his new tank it all went in his display his tank is proof alone that it's healthy he had no algae bloom and only pest he found was one little acro crab zero aptasia! Hope you don't waste such nice rock in your sump Jason By the way thanks for the corals.

[Ryanerickson]

By the way my system has .5 -1ppm nitrate and unreadable phosphate as of yesterday.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Ryanerickson

By the way my system has .5 -1ppm nitrate and unreadable phosphate as of yesterday.

To be clear, this was in no way an attack on your personal rock, just used rock in general, and accumulating too much of it "just because"

[Ryanerickson]

Lol no worries and I agree with the clean is better comment if anything was building up crud or getting dirty looking it would be gone I just would hate to see good rock be wasted

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Ryanerickson

The rock Jason is talking about is from my system I have a 55 gallon sump that is hooked up to a reef flow baracuda the flow in the sump is very strong. Also for water changes once a week the sump gets 100% drained and filled back up in less then 3 minutes. Because of the high flow in my sump there is zero debri in it about 50% off the rock is 3/4 to 100% encrusted in sponge. I totally disagree with getting rid of old rock I actually think a lot of my success with sps is because of all the rock in my system and it's only getting better with age. The pieces I gave Jason were a bunch of smaller pieces as he requested I made sure not to give away my sponge though as he wanted pieces for his display. The rock will not hurt your display and I don't see any reason not to ad a bit more up top. Last month I hooked nick (slyguy00) with 30-40 pounds for his new tank it all went in his display his tank is proof alone that it's healthy he had no algae bloom and only pest he found was one little acro crab zero aptasia! Hope you don't waste such nice rock in your sump Jason By the way thanks for the corals.

I'm sure there are a lot of people that agree with you, and sure, tanks are dying all over the place from rock poisoning but, I've done SPS many different ways, and so far the current way has been the most successful. This is of course a YMMV thing, and if what you're doing is working AND you're happy with it, then by all means keep doing it.

My comments are more of an opinion based commentary designed to get people to think about what rock does and does not. I'm not trying to encourage people to throw rock out, but from my experience with SPS reefs, less is more. Fresh and clean is more efficient than old and dirty.

But as always, what works for me and works for you can be totally different and neither needs to be "wrong"

[jason604]

Lol I only put those beautiful pieces in the sump for now till I have more time this weekend to rearrange my rock work. Also gives time the those amazing pieces u gave me to acclimate to my lights. They look awesome under my LEDs!!
Are acro crabs bad? I did find a lot of baby snail with white and purple strips

Originally Posted by Ryanerickson

The rock Jason is talking about is from my system I have a 55 gallon sump that is hooked up to a reef flow baracuda the flow in the sump is very strong. Also for water changes once a week the sump gets 100% drained and filled back up in less then 3 minutes. Because of the high flow in my sump there is zero debri in it about 50% off the rock is 3/4 to 100% encrusted in sponge. I totally disagree with getting rid of old rock I actually think a lot of my success with sps is because of all the rock in my system and it's only getting better with age. The pieces I gave Jason were a bunch of smaller pieces as he requested I made sure not to give away my sponge though as he wanted pieces for his display. The rock will not hurt your display and I don't see any reason not to ad a bit more up top. Last month I hooked nick (slyguy00) with 30-40 pounds for his new tank it all went in his display his tank is proof alone that it's healthy he had no algae bloom and only pest he found was one little acro crab zero aptasia! Hope you don't waste such nice rock in your sump Jason By the way thanks for the corals.