cruched substrate or live rock?

Question

would it be ok if i were to put 50lbs of crushed substrate in my 55 gallon aquarium instead of 50lbs of live rock

Answer 1

Yes. I wouldn't necessarily use the crushed coral, as the pieces are fairly large and it will collect "dirt" in between the pieces. I like something smaller, and the company that puts out a lot of the substrate for marine tanks has many more types available: http://www.caribsea.com/pages/products/dry_aragonite.html Most of what I use is in the range of the Seafloor special grade to Flamingo reef.

Even if you don't use live rock, you should provide some "caves" made of dry reef rock or PVC pipes as hiding places for your fish.

Answer 2

yes it would be fine as far as the bacteria and other critters you want that come along with live rock and live substrate. its obviously much more pouros being that its crushed but i prefer using both because for some reason you always get neat surprises with live rock. As far as cycleing the tank is concerned and adding that beneficial bacteria that you need to breakdown waste live sand is basically just crushed live rock or crushed coral. The other reason i like live rock is that you can do nice rock scaping with it and give a very natural oceanic look to the tank. if you plan on keeping certain sharks or rays that dont like to much rockwork and prefer the open swimming space than just going with the live sand and maybe just some liverock is just fine.