Live/dead rock arrangement

Discussion in 'General Reef Topics' started by BozoTheClownFish, Feb 29, 2008.

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  1. BozoTheClownFish

    BozoTheClownFish Plankton

    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2008
    Messages:
    3
    Hello everyone, this is my first post on 3reef and I'd like to start with a thank you! This site has really helped me along the way and I hope to be a worthy member. I am new to reef keeping, however I have a few years of experience with fresh water tanks, so I'm not quite a total noober. I setup a 29 gallon 'reef' tank in my office at work about 3 months ago and have been slowly working my way up to larger bio-load. You can see what i currently have in my sig.

    My first question is what types of rock arrangements have people tried? I'm interested to hear anything good or bad about certain arrangement characteristics.

    My second question is about dead/live rock arrangment, is there some way to accelerate the process of the dead rock becoming a live rock? Attached is a picture of how i currently have it set up. Please let me know what your thoughts are on this, good or bad or how i can make it better.

    Cheers!
     

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    Last edited: Feb 29, 2008
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  3. Camilsky

    Camilsky Montipora Capricornis

    Joined:
    Oct 28, 2007
    Messages:
    1,004
    Location:
    Groningen, The Netherlands
    First of all! Maximize the contact surface of your rock with water. The more your rock is exposed the better. You can make very cheap PVC stand that will be buried in the sand and your rock can be placed on that. If you get some decent quality LR put it on top of base rock. Try to provide the best lightning conditions for coralline. There are two most important factors that define the success rate for LR and coralline propagation:
    1. Ionic balance of your water: pH~ 8.2 to 8.4; Ca ~ 400 to 450 mg / L, Mg 1200 - 1400 mg/L , KH 8-12, presence of trace elements (although this is debatable).
    2. Intensive light with proper spectrum in the blue - near violet region, commonly referred to as actinic light.

    What are your lights?!
     
  4. BozoTheClownFish

    BozoTheClownFish Plankton

    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2008
    Messages:
    3
    Wow, thanks for the quick response. Your advise is very much appreciated. I'm pretty sure that my lighting is inadequate and plan to update that within the next 2-3 weeks. I'm currently running single 20 Watt Coral Life 10,000k fluorescent bulb.
     
  5. cuttingras

    cuttingras Starving Artist :)

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    Apr 17, 2007
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    4,884
    Location:
    Louisville, GA