Is it possible to have a thriving SPS tank with no liverock?

[foob]

I've taken the approach of only using baserock in my new 20gal tank. I've used water from my old 160gal tank that had LR.

I've fragged acros from the 160 into the 20gal. Some of them have faded in color, especially a green slimer has turned nearly white. The polyps are still green.

Wondering if the lack of diversity causes problems. Anyway to increase the diversity without using LR? I'm avoiding coralline algae hehe.

 

[Cody Ray]

It's a lack of biological filtration. Your going to get coralline no matter what. The water you used will have coralline spores, the corals you fragged will have coralline spores within the slime coating.

 

[foob]

Could you explain what you mean by lack of biological filtration. Won't the baserock be colonized by nitrifying/denitrying bacteria just as in LR?

I'm more worried about lack of diversity like sponges, micro inverts, ....

I chose what I thought to be suitable baserock, very porous ones.

 

[dippin61]

the LR needs to be LIVE for it to work as biological filtration.

taking new base rock, throwing water in the tank, then throwing your sps in, is not a good way to do it. if your not running anything else, you basically have no biological filtration running. until that is your live rock gets seeded and starts working. which, takes a while.

lack of sponges and sorts has no bearing on your water quality at this point, nor will it have anything to do with keeping sps. you basically have no filtration running, especially if theres no skimmer/wet dry/sump running as well.

 

[foob]

The baserock has been cycled. It has been in a 10gal with fish for at least a couple of months. There are no detectable ammonia/nitrite/nitrates in the tank. So if biological filtration just means nitrogen cycle, that's not the problem.

I have a skimmer if that's one concern.

I have a feeling there's something missing, that LR bring something else to the table. Just checking if anybody feels that way.

 

[cowcio]

why not throw in a piece of LR in on top of the base rock... you'll get all the good hitchhikers that way!

 

[coker98]

if you cycled it then it really isnt base rock its more like cooked rock or live rock without coralline.

 

[mntl]

You will be fine as long as it has cycled. I tend to remove much of the sponge/visible worms/stuff from my rocks prior to cooking them/prior to putting them in the tank. There is basically some minor sponges and coraline that survives. If you like the look of all the critters you will be dissapointed as they will take a very log time to sneak in and multiply on your frags/ac-mc acros. But they will come back, the good part is they will grow back and therefore be alive where as with live rock much of it will die off in your tank and a few will survive. You get to avoid much of this die-off which imo, is more important that seeing some sponge on the rock from day 1. Just one small piece of LR is enough to start the process, even just the clump of cement/Live-rock from a marine cultured acro colony will kick things off nicely.

The only issues I have had from doing it this route is a cleaner tank, I heavily feed my fish and use adaquete lighting which seems to cover any feeding issues for my sps.

just my .02c

-John-

 

[dippin61]

people and the OP are kinda missing a point

his rock is base rock.. not live rock.. i assume bought dry.

cycling base rock with just salt water and nothing to cycle with, or adding something to jump start LIFE, does not make your rock live.

it must be seeded to some degree for it to become what you think it already is.

 

[jackson6745]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7154732#post7154732 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dippin61


cycling base rock with just salt water and nothing to cycle with, or adding something to jump start LIFE, does not make your rock live.
.

Sure it does. Not only is it live but it is free of problimatic algae such as red turf. Pods are overrated

 

[Serioussnaps]

Yes its possible, in large , well expensive prop tanks. A display tank with no liverock in my opinion would just be an ugly show tank. Look at tanks with LR and tanks without LR and decide what you think looks better. If you can get around how ugly the no LR looks is then you need to figure out what you need to do. I wouldnt recommend a Reef tank without LR under any circumstances.

 

[MiddletonMark]

Given this tank has base rock - it has rock for bacteria - and that should be good enough.

Personally, 95% of the bad hitchhikers IME come in on coral mounts, plugs, or aquaculture bases [or the corals themselves] ... and all the `incidentals' on LR haven't caused me any issues.

So, IMO, you'll get some of the same problem hitchhikers whatever you do ...

 

[kalare]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7161592#post7161592 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Serioussnaps
Yes its possible, in large , well expensive prop tanks. A display tank with no liverock in my opinion would just be an ugly show tank. Look at tanks with LR and tanks without LR and decide what you think looks better. If you can get around how ugly the no LR looks is then you need to figure out what you need to do. I wouldnt recommend a Reef tank without LR under any circumstances.

I don't think it's really possible to have a fully established (long term) sps tank and not have life rock. Even if you started with base rock, all the hitchikers brought in on the corals would eventually make your base, "live"

 

[gooch]

You can start with a lot of different materials and get the same results as liverock.

I started with this(ceramic).

And after six months had this.

Whatever you introduce into the system will seed the rock. What you introduce is up to you. My new tank will only have the rock I made in it. There will be small chunks of liverock that have corals on them but I want as little as possible.

 

[deansreef]

Live rock is a good seed for other things to become "live rock"

 

[Cody Ray]

I wasn't aware you had cycled it with some fish. Then it should have a good amount of bacteria already. However, without some of the micro fana that come with liverock than it won't be able to process nitrates. It is beleived that these inverts help move water into the rock through their burrowing habits. I'm not 100% sure on this though. It would be helpful if you could list your tank parameters besides ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.

 

[foob]

I rarely test ammonia/nitrite/nitrate since it's established/cycled. Only did it when you mentioned biological filtration.

I've got reasonable values.
Ca 420-430 ppm
Alk 2.5-2.7 meq/L
Mg 1350 ppm

I actually don't measure pH

That's it don't measure anything else.

Anyway this can be considered an experiment, lets see in half a year or a year whether I can say this is a success or not.

 

[Cody Ray]

You should really test for phosphates. That could explain your coral issues.

 

[foob]

I've heard that phosphate test kits can't detect low levels so I haven't done it recently. I do have an old red sea test kit, let me see if I detect anything.

I've heard of people using a colorimeter/photometer, but still not sure how accurate that is.