Live Rock and Pico
 

Hello,

The new Blue planet gave me the bug again in a big time way. I decided to do a pico/nano with the focus on a shrimp goby/pistol shrimp pair.

I am looking at AIO setups as well as stand-alone tanks with some DIY. I need to keep the water volume low enough that Distilled water from the grocery will be sufficient for weekly water changes. I just don't have the room for a RO/DI unit and the paraphernalia. I'm not sure of this would rule out corrals or if I would be fine sticking to softies?

Which brings me to my question. Is legitimate live rock worth doing in a very small tank? I have never bought actual live rock full of life and it is one thing I would love to try. At least in such a small tank, pests would be easier to remove.

Feel free to offer any advice or suggestions. I am excited about this nano and can't wait to get started.

I wouldnt have a tank without live rock. The purple, pink and green coralline makes the tank.

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Thanks. For Pico, do you just cure the rock in a larger vessel to try to keep ammonia down?

All rock will be come "live" in time..
When you purchase "live rock" depending on where you get it from its either just going to have bacteria on it or it may have that plus other organisms like algaes/crabs/fish/pods/worms,etc..
It also has the potential for having pests,etc... in it..

Quite frankly there are only a few vendors that have live rock that I'd actually spend money on.. One being Tampa Bay Saltwater.. Their rock is not only "live" but loaded with other living organisms that make it quite interesting.. It will also have the potential for pests..

But in general as far as the function of a tank there is really no reason that starting with live rock is any better than starting with all dry rock..

If you have any LFS in your area you might want to look through their rock first. It probably won't look as "good" as the TBS stuff, but the headaches could be kept to a minimum. (pests/algae growth) Your basically going to cover most of that TBS rock with other things anyways. Now if you were going to place this rock in a tank and just let it grow wild it would be a different story. Probably an absolute mess though.

Oops. I did a crappy job explaining my meaning.

I am referring to rock collected from the ocean that is covered in life. In all previous tanks, I did a dry start with rock taken from dry land.

Thanks for pointing out Tampa Bay Saltwater. I will check them out! I was just worried that if I do a tank in the 5-10 gallon range, I may not be able to keep many of the hitchhikers. That may not be a valid concern since most hitchhikers would be small anyway?

Hands down if you want rock covered in life beyond bacteria then Tampa Bay Saltwater is your go too.. There is really no other like them that I've ever seen..

Note: for such a small tank its not going to be cheap as the overnight shipping costs could be more than the few pounds of rock you need..

+1 all the way!

There is nothing like TBS rock. With that said, as mcgyver pointed out, the shipping on such a small order of rock would definitely cost you more then the rock itself.

What I ended up doing on my new tank was scouring the internet(local club forums, graigslist, etc) for someone breaking down their tank and bought their LR for relatively cheap.

Sheesh, you are not kidding. TBS will not be feasible in my case. The shipping alone makes it impractical.