Red slate in SW?

[Hypancistrus]

I am currently in the process of "designing" a pile of rock that I am going to be placing into a 50 gallon tank and seeding with live rock. I am hoping to keep a dwarf lion and an eel in the tank, and I'd like to build a cave. In considering the rock I had available here, I found some red slate I had leftover from FW endeavors.

It's straight, like most slate, and I think it would make an excellent roof for my cave. Can I use red slate in SW or will it degrade and leech things into the water??

 

[Joe Fish]

I am no expert by any means but from what i have read if the rock is not porous it will never become live rock.I think you will be better off just getting some cheap base rock instead it seeds pretty quickly

 

[[enjoyable_attempt]]

Well like Joe said in order for it to become "live" it has to be porous. Im pretty sure you can put the slate in without any negitive effects if you want it for deco. If you want cheap rock to use to create "live" rock use lava or cheap base rock.

 

[Hypancistrus]

I have a crap load of base rock already set up in the tank, siliconed together into sections that are removeable but very stable. I was mainly going to use the slate to create the cave-- the intent was not to use it as liverock.

A person on another forum mentioned that slate is red due to a high iron content, and was unsure if that would leach out over time. So I am going to skip the slate and try to find some flatter than normal lace rock to build the cave.

All this work and the lion will most likely ignore said cave....

 

[tylerperkins]

i have a ton of lace rock in my 125 salt and the lion i had loved it hid under and in it all the time and it seeds quick too