too much live rock?

[shovelhead91701]

As a newbie I have found that I seem to keep purchasing more and more stuff for the tank. Since I am planning a large tank in the new house (at least 130 gal.....want a 180.) I have used the forthcoming tank as justification for purchasing lots of live rock. The current tank is a 55 gal. and so far I have shoved about 60 lbs. of LR into it but I just made an order for 60 more lbs. of Caribbean LR. (uncured) I just love the texture and shape of this lettuce coral based rock! I know I will have to cure it out but is there such a thing as too much LR in a tank?

[dakar]

The short answer is no, but it really depends on how you have it arranged, but so long as you can maintain adequate flow through the rock to help prevent the buildup of organics and of course additional inverts and the like to help keep the extra rock work cleaned up as well will be needed as well. Otherwise dead spots (no flow) will eventually turn into nitrate traps.

For example in our 180g, we have well over 400lbs of LR likely approaching 500, all mixed varieties from Fiji, Tonga, 150lbs or so that used to be very porous base rock, 100ish lbs of agocrete, but we are able to maintain a good amount of flow through and around all of it. Got orders from Angel to make up some more agrocrete in specific shapes and sizes too (I enjoy making it), so we'll be adding even more. We add some here and there if we find an interesting shape/size that will fit well, some gets broken up into rubble for frag mounts, it's an endless cycle. Think that will give you an idea of what I mean.

[jerryc]

#ed_op#P#ed_cl#The only problem i can see is you may just have a tank of rock until you get#ed_op#BR#ed_cl#the bigger tank with no room for corals and such.#ed_op#BR#ed_cl#i have a 55 with about 80 and its hard to arrange it as you have to stack it strait up#ed_op#BR#ed_cl#to have room to put corals on the sand bed,#ed_op#/P#ed_cl##ed_op#P#ed_cl#I hate the 12'' depth of the 55 tanks#ed_op#IMG src="http://www.captivereefing.com/richedit/smileys/Sad/8.gif"#ed_cl##ed_op#/P#ed_cl##ed_op#DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl#

[PhatBrdr427]

Yeah thats why im going with a custom built tank. its going to be about 70 gallons the way I fugure it. its going to be 36 wide, 24 tall and 18 deep. or about that, I have the dimensions written down somewhere that I cant get to since im at work.