why live rock?

I really know nothing about reef tanks, what is the purpose of live rock vs. a pile of rock for critters to grow on? Live sand, samre purpose as live rock? how do you feed coral, anemonies, and all the other little beasts attached to rocks? the questions won't be ending any time soon. thanks all

I beilve if they are established correctly they act as a large filter for the tank... I know people put them in there sumps to help filter the water

Live rock provides natural biological filtration as well as a place for algae and other things to grow. It's a place for your corals to grow, fish to hide, inverts to feed, lots of reasons to have it. Besides the whole nitrifying, denitrifying, waste breakdown processes, it looks cool.

you feed your corals solid foods like you would a fish.... or plankton depending on the type of mouth the corals have and everything sand said about the rock

aaronfeeney wrote:I really know nothing about reef tanks, what is the purpose of live rock vs. a pile of rock for critters to grow on? Live sand, samre purpose as live rock? how do you feed coral, anemonies, and all the other little beasts attached to rocks? the questions won't be ending any time soon. thanks all

Spyral and icer711 are right. Live rock acts as the main filtration. Places for critters that help clean up left over food and detritus to live and breed. Place for that good bacteria to live and breed.

As far as feeding coral....most coral live off the light in a way. You must have the correct lighting to maintain the algaes that live in the coral and anemones for them to feed off of. Some coral live on the nutrients in the water. Some time this needs to be added. There are suppliments you add to the water. Some coral can actually eat the same meaty foods you feed the fish. Its not neccessary to feed them, but they will eat it. There are some that must be fed meaty foods. I have one called sun coral. The one in this link is orange. Mine is black. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The other little beast you are referring to I am assuming are the little critters like copepods and brittle stars and snails and crabs. No you dont have to feed them. They will make due with stuff that grows on the rocks and is left over from feeding the fish.

ok I am still interested, how about lighting,, is there a watts per gallon "rule of thumb", already been reading on light spectrum, but still see conflicting info on the watts per gallon?

lilfishie - my green plate likes a piece of shrimp every now and then.

Aaron - depending on what you are keeping, there are some choices. 4 watts per gallon is about average, that's what I have with the option to go up to 6 per gallon if I need to.

typically it is 4 watts per gallon, but it really depends on what you want to keep and how deep the tank is. If you are doing fish only and the tank is only 18-20" deep 3-4 watts should be fine. If your going to have corals you will want to increase the wattage and if the tank is deep you will need more wattage per gallon. I have a 75 gal tank with soft coral and some hard coral. The hard coral is only 6" or so from the top. I am running 6 t-5 lights at 54 w per light for approx 4.3 watts per gallon. It is actually not quite enough for hard corals but they are managing. Again, the depth of the tank makes a difference too.

Spyral wrote:lilfishie - my green plate likes a piece of shrimp every now and then.

Aaron - depending on what you are keeping, there are some choices. 4 watts per gallon is about average, that's what I have with the option to go up to 6 per gallon if I need to.

They are ones that do need to be fed often.

lilfishie wrote:

Spyral wrote:lilfishie - my green plate likes a piece of shrimp every now and then.

Aaron - depending on what you are keeping, there are some choices. 4 watts per gallon is about average, that's what I have with the option to go up to 6 per gallon if I need to.

They are ones that do need to be fed often.

I keep some frozen raw shrimp in the freezer and defrost a piece for it. It has a mouth and everything!

Is there such thing as too many watts per gallon on a SW tank??? what are some of the problems when you overdue it.... is it similar to a planted FW tank?? Like alge problems or burning up your plants?? like lets say I did 8 watts per gallon, on a 18" tall tank?

To much light and I think you can bleach your coral. The taller the tank the more watts or the brighter bulbs you are gonna need. at one point I was doin 100watts on ,y old 10gal, but it wasnt for to long

If you mix like 50% live rock with 50% dead rock, you dead rock will come alive!! It should only take about a month as far as filtration and stuff is concerned, but probably takes 6-12 months until you start to really see it alive and covered..... itleast this is what Ive been reading....

Uh-oh..... next thing you know I will have a SW tank.... I gotta stop readin these threads! and if I am completly wrong please correct me... I honestly have no idea about SW, was just doin some interesting research and this is what I found,.

Yes you can have too much light. But most lighting systems are already built for wattage for the size of tank they are made for. The metal halides are a higher wattage and are made to hang above the tank a specific distance depending on the depth of the tank. So you should have no problem figuring out lighting. It all depends on what you want to keep as to what lighting system you will be looking for.
Here are a couple links to some info and sales of lighting
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