Rock on the snad bed ????

[jasdavis09]

First of all I would like to thank everyone who has hellped me along the way on this site, if it wasnt for all the info and ideas I found here I wouldnt of ever tried to do this whole reef thing agian.


My question is, is live rock on the sand bed a bad thing? A guy at the lfs told me if I didnt remove all the rock, push the sand to the side, and place the rock on the bare glass over time I may have a "huge mess on my hands that will wipe out my tank and kill everything in it." Is this true?

Thank you

Jas

 

[One Eyed Bunny]

I've never heard of this before. My only real thought would be something getting caught underneath it and it dying.

That's honestly all I can think of as being an issue, I could be wrong though.

 

[AquaReeferMan]

Umm I have never heard of that. I have Tanks like that along with many peoples tanks Ive seen with the LR right on the sand. I work at a fish store and I set up and help run peoples SW tanks so I know for a fact that will not happen. That guy didnt know what he was talking about.

 

[shag26272]

lol, what he was talking about was if you set the rock on the sand and something like a snail or fish burrows under the rock, your rockwork could collapse and break the glass on your tank, causing a huge mess and everything to die obviously

 

[AquaReeferMan]

Even if your rock work is on the bottom there is still a chance of it falling over it could be top heavy, fish knocking things over, etc. I agree to push your rock down but you dont need to move all your sand out and then place it there. All and all you shouldnt let your rock be vulnerable to a collapse from all angles not just the sand bed.

 

[Teremei]

I have my rock on my sand for 1 year, no problems.

Look, there are risks for pretty much EVERY avenue you take. There could be a risk if you have your rock RIGHT on the glass because it could cause pressure points in the bottom of the glass and crack through it that way!!

 

[ElectronRider]

I had to recently relocate my tank, and when I built my rock formations, I pushed rock down to where it touched glass. I did this because I have a pistol shrimp, and he routinely uses the entire tank for his burrowing exercises. I would do it just for the extra stability, maybe a few pieces of rock down to the bottom to use for good foundation so to speak.

 

[Blown 346]

The guy at the LFS told you not to have the rock on top of thesand but to push the sand away and then place the rock on the bottom of the tank and spread the sand back over the hole.

What he told, he just made himself look stupid, either way you do it, the part of the rock that is either buried or sitting on top of the sand will be dead, frm not getting water flow etc to it.

It really doesnt matter how you do it, but by placing the rock on the glass first then spreading the sand to it, will help stabilize the rock better than just setting it on top of the sand.