Live rock needs light?

[Neko-Chan]

Hi Hi! =^__^=

This might sound like a noob question but...

Does live rocks need light for the organisms in it to grow or live or something? =o_0=

And how long till fish is safe to put in a tank with live rock? is it when the amonia level reaches zero after putting it in for a week and letting the system run? =^___^=

 

[sweeTang21]

there is not set number of days that each tank will cycle for. You will want to test the water. When ammonia and nitrite are down to 0 then it is safe.

LR does not need lights, but coral life that may have been shipped with the rock may die. Another positive to having them in lighting is that buying cured rock, will usually have some form of coraline alge on it, this is beneficial and should be kept under light if possible.

 

[Neko-Chan]

oh cool! so coral life and agea life will die with out light! but the bristle worms and clams wont. =D

ive seen some live rock that had turned purple in the store what does that mean?

And Also is it possible to brea apart a small piece of live rock and place it inside a biowheel filter, instead of putting it in a sump, cept on a smaller scale
(itz for a nano reef experiment) =^____^=

 

[water_baby83]

oh cool! so coral life and agea life will die with out light! but the bristle worms and clams wont. =D

ive seen some live rock that had turned purple in the store what does that mean?

=^____^=

Do some more reading in this forum, these questions have already been answered. If you have additiona questions after reading, we will be happy to address those.

 

[sweeTang21]

purple is a really good sign. Getting rock thats pre cured with purple on it means your getting established rock. The purple is coraline algae, and minerals in the water and light itself will help keep that abundant within the aquarium.

brisstle worms, copepods, amphipods, etc will survive without light no problem. any form of coral life will begin to die off after time without proper light. w/e light the tank comes with will work for a short time, but dont expect great results.

my method of breaking rock is simple. Wrap a medium sized piece in a cloth hand towel and hit with a hammer (softly) we dont want to mutilate the rock just break into smaller chunks.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Yes, you can keep LR rubble in a HOB filter as a mini-refugium. Not only must your ammonia & nitrite be 0 but after that happens your nitrate will spike & you must do water changes until that is <10.

 

[Neko-Chan]

hmm no wonder the purple rock in the local fish store thats purple said not for sale! So they cud use it for them selves!!!! and the ones that are regular color are for sale 0_o. i think they needed the pruple ones for show tanks.

i think coral life will die in my rocks eventually lol. but that wudnt matter much right? cept make more dying matter which will disapear from the tank after cycling. As long as the rock has other living organisms even with out the tiny coral-life the rock should still function alright, right? =^_^=?

Hmm as for keeping the small live rock in the filter, when the live rock pieces are in, i can just leave them in there for a long time which out ever touching them?

Cool Cool Thanks for your help guys so far =^_^=

 

[Neko-Chan]

hmm Is it possible to used Dead Live rock? thats been sitting all dried up, in a fish store? If i Boil it! and really wash it then some of the dead organism on it will get taken off =^_^=.. and ur left with a clean dead live rock =D since everything is dead in that rock is cleaned away, it wont produce any ammonia? and since it wont produce ammonia then can live stock be placed in the tank to cycle? since theres nothing alive or much decaying matter on the rock anyways to make ammonia spike up.

so by adding a fish in the tank, will help the tank cycle and start recolonizinf the bacteria on the rock?

Just wondering cuz the fish store selling dead live rock cheaper.. ALOT CHEAPER lol.

I can always add live sand later on to help add more organisms =^__^=


Is this possible?

 

[Pufferpunk]

Do not cycle with fish--it can cause permanant harm to them. Uncured live rock is the best thing to cycle your tank with. Just be patient! If you can find a well-established tank to buy LR from, your tank can be instantly cycled. You can certainly use dead base rock & put LR on top of that, to seed it.

 

[Neko-Chan]

not so much the patience thing more like.. the dead live rock is cheaper than the live live rock =D... thats all. but yeah as for using it for base rock sounds like good idea.. maybe i can do like 2/3 base dead rock and the other 1/3 live or cured live rock on top to get the other rocks going. =D

Using dried rock and cleaning it really well, even though there wud still be some dead stuff inside it, hopefully not as much... the ammonia wud not be as high right?

as for the live stock i forgot to mention that the fish werent long term keeping =D. I was just planing on using feeder guppy or molly or something.. nothing too expensive. If they die theyll just end up as food to something else. =^_^=