Base rock to live rock?

I have two questions on this subject.

1. Should you place live rock directly on top of the base rock that you are trying to seed? Does it matter?

2. Should you be able to visually tell when the base rock is seeded?

I have 10 lbs of live rock and 20lbs of base rock in my tank for 8 weeks now. The live rock is dark brown with scattered coralline algae on it. The base rock looks pretty the as white as the the day I put it in there on most of it. Some of the tops of the base rock has what I'm sure is just diatom on it.

 

This thread reminded me of a instance at a LFS I rarely go to this past weekend, in the owner's attempt to sell live rock instead of base rock (LR there is 6.99 - 14.99/lb, base is like 2.99-3.99) He was swearing it takes 6-8 years to seed rock
I just laughed and left after that comment

 

what is the best kind of base rock to use?

limestone or....?

 

WOW! and he owns this place?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!? i wonder about people sometimes....

 

Opinions are like arseholes, everyones got one and knowbody wants to hear them.

my tanks one year old started with all base rock bar one peice I think when it realy started to turn was around the 6mth mark when the coroline and feather dusters started to establish on mass

 

maybe he was thinking about tampa bay lr.they dump limestone off the coast of florida and wait 6 yrs before selling it as live rock.in my tank i have 20 to 40% live rock and the rest was base rock.i can no longer tell a little over a yr later which is which.

 

If i had known that base rock existed, i may have saved money, but the cycling came sp much easier with seeded LR in the tank from day one.

Some store owners are just idiots.

 

<3 baserock. you know what's in your tank that way. Many hitchhikers can be cool, but lots of times VERY unwanted. My entire tank was base rock other than maybe 20 pounds that i bought in the beginning. The best base rock i've come across is the aragonite base rock. Took maybe 5-6 months before i would have considered my base rock to be "live".

 

IMO the cycle never ends... Our tanks are always cycling, adjusting to something.
In the past I started a system with about 100 pounds of dry base rock, and used maybe 15 pounds of good live rock... It was a flawless transition into a beautiful reef tank. I did have to fight a few algae blooms along the way. But IMO once you kind of understand the hobby there are all sorts of ways to get from A ...... to ........ B

I feel everyone has a different way of doing something, but this is our hobby, its fun to learn new ways that work just as well.

It always amused me meeting people who think there way is the only way. I love learning new ways to reef.

My current way is I use NO chemicals at all ever.... The only chemical I use would be the synthetic sea water... But if I had a way to collect sea water from Pittsburgh, PA I would.

I think 95% of the stuff pets stores sell is a waist of money.