Live Rocks

Live Rocks Enhance Your Aquarium Environment

Live rocks are not alive themselves but they host micro and macroscopic organisms. The rocks are usually made up of coral and other calcium compounds.

Why Live Rocks?

Instead of using external filtration systems, most saltwater aquarium owners try to balance their aquarium environment to internally deal with waste products like nitrate and phosphate.

Live rocks have many organisms (algae, bacteria, sponges, mussels, and more), waste products like ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, or phosphates have many ways to be broken down and neutralized.

One characteristic of live rocks is that they’re usually very porous. Because of the surface area and the volume of water flowing through them, they can excellent biological filters.

Because the live rocks have a high calcium content, they also buffer your aquarium water pH.

Types Of Live Rocks

Not all rocks can become live or home to organisms. The key ingredient needed in live rocks is calcium. Whether the live rock is natural or man-made, it must contain calcium.

Not counting artificial live rocks, there are two types of live rocks: inshore and reef live.

Inshore rocks come from inside the reef (closer to shore) and suitable for macroscopic organisms like crabs, mussels, and shrimp. They are denser than reef rocks.

Reef rock are usually made of coral that’s been broken off in storms that have settled. If you have a choice, get reef rocks because they’re more effective in cycling water and stabilizing your aquarium water (due to their porous nature). Also, if you buy uncured reef rocks, they cure much faster.

What Is Curing Live Rocks?

Some rocks from quality sources will come already cured or ready to be installed into your aquarium tank. If you see terms like ‘unseeded’, ‘fresh’, ‘uncured’, or ‘unconditioned’, it means the rock has not been cured and you need to go through the curing process to get it ready for your saltwater aquarium.

Normally, live rocks are submerged in fresh seawater (or saltwater). However, when they’re collected, if they’re not kept submerged in water, they dry out and the organisms that are growing on them die. Add any shipping time, your live rocks could have spent 3-7 days out of the water.

Curing live rocks is basically bringing ‘dead’ rock back to life.

Curing Live Rocks

First, prepare a bucket of saltwater and submerge your live rock in it. Look for any black spots or area with a white film. These are either dead or dying spots. Gently rub these spots off with a sponge or a spray bottle.

The live rock should be kept in the dark during this time to prevent algae bloom. The water should be well filtered and have a protein skimmer.

Do this daily until you don’t see any black spots or white film for a week. By then, most of the dying should have stopped and the rock should be ready to be introduced to your tank. This can take anywhere from a few days to months but ideally, you should do this for a minimum of  a month.

How do you know your live rock is ready? There’s two factors:

• Does it smell like it’s rotting?
• Does the saltwater used for curing have any ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate reading?

If the answer to both questions is ‘no’, then your live rock is cured.

Caring For Your Live Rocks

First of all, when starting with live rocks, start slowly. If you quickly add massive amounts of live rock, they can quickly die off. Start small and let them get used to your saltwater aquarium environment. Once things seem stable, add some more.

Secondly, make sure your fish selection isn’t primarily herbivore or feed on coral. Otherwise, your fish can easily pick your live rock clean.

A good ratio to use is 1.0 – 1.75 lbs of live rock per gallon. Some people just eyeball it to see what looks good.

If you see any black spots or white film on your live rock, remove them immediatley. As the organisms die, they will pollute your saltwater aquarium water.

Any area of your live rock that doesn’t receive circulation will die. Try to arrange your live rock to expose as much area as possible to water flow.

When adding live rocks, make sure your tank isn’t full. Otherwise, they’ll be an overflow of water.