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- When discussing live rock, let's start with the basics.
What is it?
Live rock can be either human made or naturally made.
It's a highly porous rock usually made of calcium carbonate.
The rock itself is not alive but once beneficial bacteria
colonize both the exterior and deep inside,
it becomes alive thus aiding in the nitrogen cycle.
I would say there are four primary functions of live rock.
The first being the biological filtration.
The second function of live rock is purely aesthetics.
A completely empty tank just doesn't look very good.
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The third function of live rock
is a place to put your corals.
And the fourth function of live rock
is really to provide a hiding place for fish.
Live rock can get a little bit confusing
because it can come in wet or dry.
And really all that means is does it arrive
at your doorstep still wet
or does it arrive at your doorstep completely dry.
The vast majority of commercially available rocks
and certainly all the ones at Marine Depot
are dry live rock.
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What are we gonna be using
in the Innovative Marine Encore Build,
we're gonna be using the CaribSea Life Rock.
Just the base rock which just comes
in kind of standard shapes, we got way more
than we needed but that way we have some flexibility
to create something really cool.
CaribSea Life Rock is manmade but it's manmade
from real Aragonitic base rock.
It comes in this cool coralline color
that really mimics the reef well.
And it is filled with all of this spored bacteria
which will help your aquarium cycle quicker
once you add the salt water.
Lastly, how much do you need?
Now a lot of this is obviously gonna depend
on your scaping preferences but a good rule of thumb
would be to get about one to 1 1/2 pounds
per gallon of water.
If your budget can afford it, I recommend getting
a little bit more than you think you need
because it will give you flexibility.
And you can even break the larger pieces.
You can saw the off and you can just do a lot more
and not have to worry about breaking a piece.
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There are a few different types of live rocks.
The most common type of rock you're gonna find
is called base rock or foundation rock.
Just has general, large rock shapes
with a bunch of nooks and crannies.
The next kind of rock is called branching rock.
It basically comes in these long branches.
The fourth kind of rock is called shelf rock.
And just think of the flat, horizontal surface of a shelf
and that's the rock.
These pieces are really great for mounting corals
and often times you will see them perched
between two pieces of base rock.
The last kind of rock is called rubble rock.
Basically when you get your live rock shipment,
you're gonna find a whole bunch of broken pieces
at the bottom.
Don't throw 'em away.
These are really handy for hiding the seams
and for creating little miniature islands in your tank.
Often times people ask the question
can you just pick up some rocks
that you find on a hike or around the yard.
And the answer is probably not.
First, it's not gonna be porous enough for all
that beneficial bacteria to colonize.
And secondly, we don't know what sort of heavy metals
are in that rock that could slowly leach out over time
and harm your livestock.
What rocks do we recommend, well anything you're gonna find
at Marine Depot is great.
But my own personal favorites are either
the CaribSea Life Rock, Marco rocks
or real reef rock.
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Aquascaping or scaping as hobbyists like to call it
is basically the process of putting rocks
inside your tank in some sort of functional
and aesthetic mixture.
A stacked aquascape is definitely the most simple.
All you do is you take your live rock
and you just stack it on top of each other.
The pros of this are if you ever have to catch a sick fish
or remove something, all you have to do is pull out
the pieces one by one.
The tank is empty and then you can catch a fish.
But the negative is it's not as staple as securing it.
So you could have a snail or other livestock
like sea urchins who could nudge the edges
and topple your whole aquascape,
possibly killing your fish, knocking your corals off.
A secured aquascape is just the opposite
and you glue or cement the pieces together
basically making it into one solid structure.
I have two favorite products I always use
when I'm securing the pieces together.
The first is the Stone Fix from Aqua Forest.
What I like about it is all you have to do is add water
and you can make really small batches.
The second thing I constantly use is the Aquastik.
It's by Two Little Fishies.
I like the Coralline red color.
And for any sort of small pieces,
I like this Marine Depot extra thick super glue.
It's really hand to attach especially
small pieces of rubble rock
or really tiny pieces that don't need a lot of support
there are two really good ways
of breaking up your live rock.
The first is literally take it, drop it
and you get smaller pieces.
So the second thing you can do
is you can take a saw, a Sawzall, a hacksaw, anything
and you can cut specific pieces that you want off of it.
A chisel also works really well.
I got seven tips and tricks for you
when you're doing aquascaping.
The first is using a cardboard mock up.
What I like to do is just grab a couple pieces of cardboard,
get some blue tape.
Measure the exact dimensions of the inside of your tank
and then just do a mock up.
Tip number two is the rule of third.
And basically what you do is you take any sort of image,
picture, video aquascape and you put two horizontal lines
and two vertical lines.
And the rule of thirds says,
an image is more visually striking
if you put the subject or the centerpiece
at the intersecting point of those lines
rather than in the middle.
Tip number three is something beginners
don't often think about but it's flow patterns.
If you are to put your aquascape in such a way
that you're wave makers or your return nozzles
have a bunch of dead areas.
What's gonna happen over time is you're gonna notice
food and poop gathering in certain areas
and it's gonna be a pain
because you're gonna have to siphon it out.
Number four is light penetration.
This really depends on the kind of light you buy.
For example, if you're using the Kessil A80s
like we're using on the Encore build.
If you were to take a piece of rock like this, right.
Put it near the top of your scape
and the light is like right here.
What would happen is it would light this portion
really high with a lot of intensity.
But it would cast shadows on all sides.
Meaning the bottom of your tank might not get enough light.
Number five is pretty common sense
but it's a mistake that I made.
You just need to make sure you leave enough room
around the edges of your aquascape
between the aquascape and the glass.
Tip number six is hiding the seams.
The purple epoxy automatically looks a little better
especially if you're using the CaribSea Life Rock
that we are using.
But you can take an additional step.
If you buy live rock, what you're gonna find
is there are gonna be pieces of rubble.
Small pieces that have broken off from the bigger pieces.
What I like to do is I like to take
some of that Marine Depot super thick superglue
or even the Two Little Fishies Aquastik Coralline red epoxy.
And I just put a layer on top of the seams
and then I take a bunch of pieces of rubble rock
and I stick them on there.
And finally tip number seven is stability
and feet on your aquascape.
If you were to just put it flat
on the bottom of the glass, yes that would be
the most stable but the problem is
is you have all of this surface area
where there's no flow,
where detritus could build up over time.
So what I like to do is I like to build my aquascapes
in such a way that I have small feet
touching the bottom, leaving a minimal contact
between the glass and the scape.
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Live sand, it's primarily made
of a mineral called Aragonite.
Aragonite is calcium carbonate and it's basically
the same material that coral skeletons are made of
as well as like snail shells.
A question a lot of beginners ask is
do you need a sand bed for a succesful reef tank?
And you're ready for the answer?
No, no you don't.
A sand bed has three primary functions.
The first is biofiltration.
The second primary function is aesthetics.
Just because it looks nicer.
The third function of a sand bed
is to provide a home for your livestock.
For example, there are different sand-sifting starfish,
Nassarius snails, wrasses, gobies that rely on a sand bed
either for hiding, for sleeping or for feeding.
There really are two types of sand beds,
a shallow sand bed and a deep sand bed.
I would consider a shallow sand bed, anything
two inches or under and a shallow sand bed
is my personal preference.
A deep sand bed, let's say four to six inches in depth,
let's talk grain sizes.
Really when you're buying live sand,
there are three grain sizes.
The first is what we would call a sugar fine sand.
This is typically anything from 0.25 to one millimeter.
It would be something similar to this,
very, very, very fine.
The second grain type is what's called special grade.
This is one millimeter to two millimeters.
The third and final grain size is coarse.
Coarse is most typically crushed coral.
And while this is not crushed coral here, you get the idea.
It has some very large pieces in it.
When it comes to colors, there really are three choices.
The first choice is just white.
The second choice is white
with a little bit of pink moved in.
And the third choice is black.
I have three personal favorites.
They all come from the CaribSea Arag-Alive brand.
The Arag-Alive comes pre-populated with beneficial bacteria
so you actually don't wanna rinse it.
Put it in your tank.
It comes with a little clarifier pouch.
In 24 hours, it will completely clear up.
The first sand I would recommend is Fiji Pink.
It's grain sizes are 0.5 to 1.5.
So it's not quite as fine as that sugar fine
but not quite as coarse is the special grade.
I've used this sand a ton and it's actually the sand
I'm gonna use in the Innovative Marine Encore build.
The second type is called special grade.
This is my own personal favorite right now.
Because the grain size is slightly bigger
from one to two millimeters.
It's big enough that I don't get any sort of sand storms
even when I turn the flow up to high.
And my third and final recommendation
is called Hawaiian Black.
This has a broader mix of grain sizes
from 0.25 to three millimeters.
And if you want that kind of black lava look that you find
in some of the big island beaches,
then this is the sand for you.
So how much sand do you need?
I would say that for a shallow sand bed,
less than two inches, you probably wanna pick
basically a pound of live sand for every 1 1/2
to two gallons of water.
A very common question especially for everybody
who lives on one of the coasts is
can you use sand from the beach and the answer is
potentially yes.
But there are two caveats.
The first is especially here in the United States,
there are federal and local laws
that may prohibit the taking of beach sand.
So you need to do your research first
and make sure it's allowed in your area.
The second caveat is make sure that if you do find a source
that is legal to harvest, that you choose a very
clean portion of the beach.
Even so, I would probably take that sand home
and rinse it out several times before using it in your tank.
But in my personal opinion, I would say why risk it?
You know you can pick up for relatively cheap
a 10 or 20 pound bag of the Arag-Alive.
You know it's sustainably sourced.
You know it's legally sourced
and you know it's filled with millions if not billions
of beneficial bacteria that will help
cycle your tank more quickly.
Lastly is how to maintain your sand bed.
And there are two primary ways we do that.
The first is through your water changes.
Use one of the gravel vacuums and gently siphon out
a lot of that detritus that will settle into your sand bed.
The second way to maintain your sand bed
is through a clean up crew.
There are various creatures out there
that will help keep the sand bed both aerated and clean.
Such as sand sifting starfish, wrasses,
sand sifting gobies and various types of snails.
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Coming up next week, everything you need to know
about RO/DI systems, water chemistry and salt mixes.
As always, we'll see you in the next episode.
Happy reefing everybody.
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