live rock to dry rock

I cant afford 50lbs of live rock its just alot lol. So i wanr 50lbs of rock total how much do you guys think has to be live rock in order to seed the dry base rock

 

Any amount (besides zero of course) will "eventually" seed the dry rock. I would say 5-10 live to 40-45 dry. Or somewhere in that range. The more LR you add, the faster the dry rock will be seeded, and the faster your tank will cycle.

 

Im using live sand as well will that help seed the rock as well?

 

That really depends on where you are getting your live sand. If the live sand is from an established tank with a diverse set of beneficial organisms, then yes the sand will help. On the other hand, if you are using bagged live sand, which carries much less bio-diversity, then it will not be of much help.

 

Darn i used bagged...im gonna call my buddy and see if he can give me a cup of his sand, anythings better than nothing

 

I hear people repeat that over and over, yet the one time I bought bagged live sand and used it with all dry rock to start my tank, I could not get an ammonia spike with a raw shrimp, and I had a ton of different critters crawling out of it in just a month.

No matter, though- you can use all dry rock and sand if you want; your tank will still cycle. If you don't want to wait 4 - 6 weeks, I would suggest using a bacterial supplement like Dr. Tim's One and Only or Microbacter7.

 

Yup that will help. Though it will take a little longer with the dry rock, you are definitely on your way. I actually just upgraded to a 90g and did an approximately 50/50 live to dry. So we are in the same boat

 

Ok cool i have 20 lbs of dry rock now and getting 20 live wednesday and another 15 live saturday