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- [M] Do you really need 2.5lbs/gallon LR?(was: Q: Cost of setting up 200 gal reef
by jason/lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Jason Rosenberg) (Wed, 7 Apr 93)
by jason/lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Jason Rosenberg)
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 93
Newsgroup: rec.aquaria
All of this talk has me wondering. I don't have a reef, of course, and don't
know all the issues involved. But would happen if you set up a reef with less
than the recommended 2.5lbs/gal of live rock. It seems to me you could set
up a pretty neat really big tank by having a live-rock reef at one end of
the tank, and then a sandy bottom throughout the other half (living sand would
be really cool!). Anyway, you could put a few "dead" rocks at the
sandy end of the tank. Perhaps, these would become inhabited by the life on
the live rocks and over time become living themselves. Adey, of course, would
have some strong opinions about what kind of sand to use....
Now, you would stock the tank relatively lightly in
terms of fish/inverts, only enough to be within the filtration capacity of
the live rock in the tank. Personally, I think it would be great to have
things like small flounders or skates to live in the sandy end. I don't
imagine wrasses are a good idea in a reef(?), but they would love a sandy bottom
as well. You could also have small pelagic types to occupy the open end of
the tank, like cardinals or green chromis.
Anyway, you would only need strong lighting at the "living" end. It seems to
me that the tank would be easier to maintain since there would be a large
reservoir of water to slow pollution by inorganics, and the concentration of
mineral additives like calcium and strontium would be depleted more slowly.
What do you think?
--
Jason Rosenberg Computer Science Department
jason-at-cs.ucla.edu University of California
{uunet,rutgers,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!jason Los Angeles, CA 90024
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