Is more live rock better than less live rock?

[huseMN]

Is more live rock better than less live rock from a biological filtration standpoint?

For example, hypothetically, if a person were to put 500 pounds of live rock in an Sump would it be be better than having 100 pounds of rock?

[huseMN]

To elaborate, I am wondering if there is a point of diminishing returns where an increased amount of live rock does not help the biological filtration any further.

[moatdaddy]

One of the newer things catching on is porous materials being used in place of live rock. I had 200lbs of LR in a 210g aquarium with no sand. When it came time to tear down the tank that rock was dirty. I mean filthy. So in my new build i used matrix in a bag and a lot less LR. I will rinse the Matrix and LR to keep the detritus out of the system by doing so in a rotational cleaning. That way i dont wipe all the bacteria with rinsing and exposing to air at one time.

So, In my experience, if its a couple hundred pounds it may be too much to keep clean. Then again there are plenty of people with mound of LR that have other methods to control and remove detritus.

[huseMN]

OK thanks for the response, for discussion sake let's assume that detritus is out of the equation and that the liverock I am talking about is in a completely separate tank plumbed into the system with filter socks catching any detritus so in theory that should not be an issue. so pose the same question given that info. Does more liverock=more bio filtration?

[mikeatjac]

Well I use socks and still get detritus on my sump live rock. However to answer your question the more LR the more filtration area. Not sure at what point adding more becomes marginal. Some live rock is better than others, the effectiveness of the skimmer, flow and Bio Load all contribute to the amount of LR you need.

[RobbyG]

Originally Posted by huseMN

OK thanks for the response, for discussion sake let's assume that detritus is out of the equation and that the liverock I am talking about is in a completely separate tank plumbed into the system with filter socks catching any detritus so in theory that should not be an issue. so pose the same question given that info. Does more liverock=more bio filtration?

No in the real world you get to a point of diminishing returns. You cannot use fantasy ideals like if there is no detritus because there always will be. If you put too much live rock in, you start to cut down on the ability of the water to flow to every point in the tank and you also create many areas that catch and hold detritus.

The benefit I guess your looking for is larger bacteria colonies. You also have diminishing returns with that, you can get twice as much bacteria in half the rock if it's the right kind of rock. Once your tank cycles, so long as you have a fair amount of rock and sand it will house enough bacteria to breakdown the ammonia and nitrite. Adding more rock will just thin out the population to whatever amount of bacteria is sustainable for the bio load. The befits of going nutz and adding tons of live rock will often be negated by the pitfalls of Detritus building up and you having tons of dead spots.