how much rock

anygood ball park numbers on how much rock is suitable for 55gal.

 

55-75 lbs would be m yguesstimate, ive got about 110 lbs in my 90 now. and will be adding another 10 or so slowly soon.

 

50/55 pounds

 

The general rule is about 1-1.5 lbs of rock per gallon of water. So somewhere around 55-65 lbs should be good.

 

+1 on 55-65 lbs ... just pick nick looking rocks to work with and youd be amazed at how fast the poundage builds up

 

thank you. just reading a post on dry Vs Live. if i went with 40 dry and 20 LR. good? how much LR is needed to seed BR. does it need to touch or just be in the water?

 

you can get all BR it will become live just takes some time if you get LR your tank should cycle faster but will cost more. if you do do it it does not need to touch it it just needs to be in the water. not sure how much it wiill speed things up though mabe some1 else can chime in on that. i would think it would take the same amount of time as if you only had 40 lbs of BR. but thats a guess

 

ok Thank you.

For you or the person who "chimes in" if doing mostly BR and some LR. Better to find more smalle pieces of LR or one or two larger pieces?

does cured LR hold hitchhikers. or is that what makes it LR. is it luck of the draw if you get unwanted things.

If the LFS is reputable should i worry?

 

well if your using mostly base rock, get bigger pieces of that for the bottom of the scape. and get smaller ones for the top part. or try and envision if you can what you want your look to be. you can probably go 50-10 . just need abit of lr for coraline to spread. and saves you a few bucks for other things.

 

CJ24

live rock, is just rock that has been colonised by bacteria
many of the things you do get with live rock are the subject of future
'how do I get rid of this" threads Aiptasia, majano, crabs, mantis, GHA, Bryopsis etc
many of these find their way into your reef tank when you buy live rock,
the more you buy, the greater the odds on you getting some of these

so although there is nothing wrong with your ratio - IME I would be happier using less live and more base

its all live rock after a few weeks/ months in your tank
the more porous the rock the better it is for providing real estate for the different strains of bacteria

also a mix of standard rock shape type and shelf type is great for aquascaping as the flat pieces may great shelves for securely locating corals

Steve