How much rock?

[Simi105]

Hey folks

Just about to stick in an order for my new tank. I've gone for the Red Sea Reefer 350 (73 gallon), and I've decided to go for dry Pukani rock to cure myself to keep costs down.

Just wondering approx how much I should order? I'd rather have slightly too much than too little. Any excess I could always stick in the sump?

Cheers in advance

[mcgyvr]

Usually around 1.5 lbs per gallon..

Personally... Any new tank I do will ONLY have tampa bay saltwater live rock..
Its WELL... WELL.. WELL... worth the cost.. Its AMAZING rock with TONS of diversity (sponges/crabs,etc...).. Simply amazing stuff..
Order the "package" and never look back..
again.. WORTH the price..

[Maritimer]

Agreed ... It's the home of your primary filter.

My system is a 65gallon display with 20-long sump and HOB refugium. I purchased two 40# boxes of "air rock" from Blue Zoo. It arrived wet, but with little macro life on board. Many, many smaller pieces went into my two refugia, where 'pods worms, sea-squirts, sponges and snails come out to play.

Seems to be handling nitrification & denitrification so far . . .

~Bruce

[Brieninsac]

I put 77 lbs. of Reef Rock 2.1 in my Reefer 350.

[CStrickland]

Pukani can be very light for its size. A lot of people wind up under a pound per gallon using it because it is so porous. Personally, Im suspicious of the claims that more rock = more filtration, whether its in the tank or the sump.

Make sure you read up on the specific issues with phosphate in that rock. It is beautiful stuff especially once it catches up to the denser live rocks in coraline growth and microcritters, but it can leach phosphate ferociously so a little prevention is worth pounds of cure. Search for threads specific to curing Pukani, and "cooking" or "revitalizing" live rock.

[Timfish]

It's mostly aesthetics. I usually use a little less than 1 lb per gallon and sometimes just 1/2 lb per. I would second the use of either quality wild live rock or quality maricultured live rock that has been air shipped and not stuck on a boat or truck for transport. You don't have to use a lot to get the beneficial cryptic sponges that are crucial for dealing with DOCs but you definitely are much better off with it. You do need to QT live rock just like fish and corals to make sure you don't have any undesirable animals (for whatever reason some aquarists call it "cooking" which I think only adds confusion because you definitely do not want to heat it in any way and it's no different than QTing fish or corals).

[CStrickland]

I don't think most people mean qt when they talk about cooking rock, I don't think I've ever heard it used that way. It's more about getting it rid of nutrients; mostly bound phosphates, maybe sometimes people cook it for organics too but that's more accurately called curing IMO.

[zoafarm]

So to answer your question...60 lbs of pukani rock will probably be a lot of rock in that size tank. I used BRS pukani in a 72 gallon bowfront, and it seems like I used 50 or 60 pounds. That rock is very light for it's size.

Outside of the question... Although this rock is very pretty (IMO), it can be a real pain in your back side. If you are new to the hobby, I would highly recommend going with a quality live rock as mentioned above. The Pukani will arrive with lots of dried up stuff in and on it...hence the reason you need to cure it and try to leach out the phosphates. Also without really good flow in the tank and good tank maintenance, particles of food and poop can easily get trapped down inside the pukani. The next thing you know...boom...a great algae farm is growing. This can get very frustrating...especially when you are starting out. Therefore this may not be worth the cost savings...

With that said, I started with pukani almost 8 years ago and I still use it in all my tanks. Best of luck and Happy Reefing!

[tzylak]

Filtration aside, consider the cosmetic and practical aspects.
I have a 55g hex and it has a steep-sloping pile of a reef. Beautiful, but at a price of minimal "beach" on the front, -barely enough to pass the glass cleaning magnet.
The reef goes up to the water surface. That means that to do anything with the lower portion of the stack I have to disassemble the upper one. Sometimes I would like to change this or that near the mid-section or the bottom but choose not to since it is such a PITA.
If you want a lot of rock, get a lot. Just consider not putting all of it into the DT until you get a feel for what you really want and how much you really want to deal with.
Remember, this is not a sprint but a marathon. -Don't over burden yourself initially in consideration of still running the latter miles.
Have FUN!!!

[Simi105]

Originally Posted by zoafarm

So to answer your question...60 lbs of pukani rock will probably be a lot of rock in that size tank. I used BRS pukani in a 72 gallon bowfront, and it seems like I used 50 or 60 pounds. That rock is very light for it's size.

Outside of the question... Although this rock is very pretty (IMO), it can be a real pain in your back side. If you are new to the hobby, I would highly recommend going with a quality live rock as mentioned above. The Pukani will arrive with lots of dried up stuff in and on it...hence the reason you need to cure it and try to leach out the phosphates. Also without really good flow in the tank and good tank maintenance, particles of food and poop can easily get trapped down inside the pukani. The next thing you know...boom...a great algae farm is growing. This can get very frustrating...especially when you are starting out. Therefore this may not be worth the cost savings...

With that said, I started with pukani almost 8 years ago and I still use it in all my tanks. Best of luck and Happy Reefing!

Thanks for the speedy replies
Up until this point I suppose I've just assumed the more porous a rock is, the better at filtration it will be. I take it this isn't necessarily the case?

As far a flow goes, I've already purchased a single Maxspect Gyre, and will possibly be purchasing a second when I can afford an aquarium controller to link the two together. Flow shouldn't be a problem I'm hoping!

Just going back to the "cooking" issue, I've heard some people boil their rock before curing. Any thoughts on this? I take it that this would kill absolutely everything, including what little bacteria is left on the dry rock?

[CStrickland]

You don't ever want to heat up the rock, as some of the things that have died on it can contain highly toxic compounds that will enter the air and make you dead. Besides, there's no point.

[davehead86]

Originally Posted by Simi105

Thanks for the speedy replies
Up until this point I suppose I've just assumed the more porous a rock is, the better at filtration it will be. I take it this isn't necessarily the case?

As far a flow goes, I've already purchased a single Maxspect Gyre, and will possibly be purchasing a second when I can afford an aquarium controller to link the two together. Flow shouldn't be a problem I'm hoping!

Just going back to the "cooking" issue, I've heard some people boil their rock before curing. Any thoughts on this? I take it that this would kill absolutely everything, including what little bacteria is left on the dry rock?

DO NOT BOIL ANYTHING.


If you want to kill the rock buy bleach. sit it in bleach for a day or two. take it out and rinse it then into RODI water with PRIME in it. You will have the change the RODI / Prime water 2-3 times before the chlorine smell is gone (which means the chlorine is gone).


If you want to remove phosphates you need to get muric acid to eat the outside layer of the rock off. That would take place AFTER the bleaching process.

[zoafarm]

As mentioned in a earlier post, I think you are confusing "Cooking" and "Curing". If you are buying dry pukani, I do not see a good reason to "cook" the rock. Cooking rock normally involves putting rock into an acid mixture to kill unwanted things on the rock. Dry Pukani rock is dead rock...everything on it will be dead. On the other hand, it will need to be "cured". Curing rock involves putting rock into saltwater with heater and circulation to allow the rock to leach of phosphates. This will require several water changes and chemicals (lanthanum chloride) to remove phosphates. The whole point of this is to bring the rock back to life and reduce the chance of algae outbreaks in your display tank.

check out this link:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2049855

But you DO NOT want to "boil" any rock. This can be very dangerous because of the toxins that can be released.

[tjm9331]

Pukani is very light and porous therefore giving more surface area for bacteria to colonize and because it is so light and porous you will end up with big pieces. I have about 60lbs of pukani in my 75 gallon tank and it should be more than enough to provide good biofiltration.

Zoafarm is right there are 2 schools of thought when it comes to pukani you can either "cook" the rock using bleach and muriatic acid or you can "cure" the rock using a brute trash can and lanthanum chloride.

The difference between the 2 is the cooking is a bit faster with a 24 hour bleach soak then 45min muriatic acid bath the soak in rodi water with prime changing the water and prime until there is no more bleach smell. All in all this process too me about a week.

Curing takes a touch longer by letting the rock sit in the brute can with a heater and power head adding the lanthanum chloride then performing many water changes testing for phosphates every so often. While painstakingly long this is usually the more reliable method.

Either way be sure to do one or the other or else you will fight high phosphates in your DT for at least the first 6 months maybe even a year.

[CStrickland]

That link doesn't work for me zoafarm

I agree that "cooking rock" is a stupid name, but it only adds to the confusion to use it to describe things like qt or say it is only talking about bleach/acid.

Cookingdoes not refer exclusively to the bleach-acid process. For over ten years people have been "cooking" rock to clean up organics and remove phosphate that is bound to the calcium structure. Acid is one, but not the only way. In the bad old days people let the bacteria do the work in dark buckets. This is still different from curing because the purpose is to clean the rock and the main target is the bound phosphate. Bacteria remove that pretty slowly, and you waste a lot of water changing all of it out for phos less water, which is why people have adopted methods like lanthanum chloride and acid or even just running gfo. They are still cooking the rock, but they have found new ways to achieve the goal of phosphate removal more quickly than the ones available when this thread was fresh http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=437342

The purpose of "cooking" your rocks is to have tha bacteria consume all (or as much) organic material and PO4 stored on, and in, the rock as possible.

Curing rock has a different purpose. It aims to process the dead organic matter in order to prevent an ammonia spike from letting it decay in the tank. http://m.liveaquaria.com/PIC/article.cfm?aid=209

Curing rock dry Pukani will prevent an ammonia spike from the dead organic matter in all the books and crannies, which Pukani has extra of, but it does not prevent the phosphate leaching that makes people rue the day they bought that rock. Cooking removes the dead matter that is physically stuck on the rock, and also removes the phosphate that has attached to the actual calcium carbonate molecules. Curing is just about the nitrogen cycle, cooking is about that and also the molecular binding.

[scooter31707]

IMO, 1-2lbs per gallon