Do you have to have 1 lb of live rock for every gal of water in a salt water tank?

Question

I am planning on getting a 80 gal salt water tank.Is it nessaesary to have 1 lb of live rock per gal of water.And if so, what is the cheapest cured live rock that can be bought?I was also thinking of converting a ten gal fresh water to a salt water tank will this be very expensive?

Answer 1

Yes, in fact most reef tanks have more than 1 lb per gallon. For your 80 gallon tank, I would suggest about 100 lbs of live rock.
As for the cheapest cured live rock, you can look online or you can talk to your local fish store. They will probably make a deal with you if you buy all your live rock there.
You can try e-bay, where you can usually find it for 2-5$ per pound, or you can try a supply site like liveaquaria.ca.
I'm a fan of Fiji liverock, but Tonga is good too. Generally, the more porous, the better.

You should probably avoid setting up a 10 gallon SW tank at this time. An 80 gallon SW tank would be relatively easy to maintain, but a 10 gallon SW tank would likely fail. SW creatures and much more delicate than FW, and far less forgiving of mistakes, and even experienced aquarists with years of SW experience fail with 10 gallon SW tanks. It's just really hard to maintain perfect parameters, in part because the water volume is so small but also becaues you can't really have some of the necessary equipment in a tank that small.

Answer 2

i agree with zoe bout everything except ebay.. never ebay any rock, cuz they probably wont ship it correctly and it will be dead by the time you get it.... buying cured rock may not help you anyways because by the time you get it home there will be die off and youl need to let it cycle... so i would just cure my own in your case...

i have run a ten gal saltwater for a year now and you will have to look forward to water changes every other day... u still need everything that a big tank needs... with possibly more.... stick with the 80 till u have more experience... email me with a list of the fish you have in mind... im curious