pukani

just wondering if anyone could tell me approx. how many pounds of pukani I would need for a 28 gallon Nano cube? I see that its much more porous than your normal Fiji rock and I don't want to buy anymore than what I need.

 

The rule of thumb i was always told was about a pound per gallon. Obviously porosity and your planned bioload will dictate your actual needs.

 

The Pukani takes up a lot more space per lb due to all the holes, nooks & crannies. id start @ .5 -.75 lbs of Pukani /gallon. You can always add more later, however having a little extra gives you some choice as to which pieces you want to use.

 

Probably around .35-.7 pounds per gallon...

 

1/2 lbs is what i did when i bought pukani....just keep in mind that the rock comes with dead material on it that will turn into nitrates and phosphates...mine took about 4 months to leach out all that extra phosphate in it. Great rock though and very porous.

 

BTW, Pukani rock I got from BRS had insane amount of dead organics in it. We are talking tiny smelly rotting clams, sponges and all kinds of stuff. Being a lazy noob like I am, I cycled my tank with all that stuff. The sheer amount of cyano and algae I had to battle for 6 month was insane.

If you're set on pukani, which is gorgeous btw, my advice get rock early and cook it.

And yes, 1/2lbs per gallon is plenty. Also make sure to request smaller pieces. Pukani comes in some crazy size rocks and if you don't specify, you might just get one or two giant rocks. While some parts of pukani are super easy to chip/cut, others proved to be pretty darn solid.

 

^ yup what he said, I ended up with like only 3 huge rocks.

 

this makes me nervous and makes me wonder if im not better off just getting 100% live rock this is my first reef tank and I don't want to start out battle algae and diseases

 

Any rock you order is going to have die-off. I would use base rock and seed it with a piece of liverock if I were to start another tank, even a cup full of sand from an established tank. All the rock will become live within a few weeks and is much cheaper in the long run.

 

You could go with the Marco rocks which is similar to the Pukani but is mined out of the earth (it's from a long gone reef).

I still prefer the Pukani.