How to keep live rock from turning into dead rock?

[ShortCircuit]

First off, just let me say I KNOW SQUAT about keeping ANYTHING alive, let alone anything in a tank. My hobby involves GPU's and CPU's and I have never messed with anything involving water (except liquid cooling but that mess is another story). So please keep it simple for me to understand.

I am asking this for my girlfriend who DOES have a 55g tank that I bought her for Christmas. She got sand, live rock and salt water and we put it all into the tank today. With the tank we got a canister filter (see picture) that she says is very important to keep water clear and moving. Well that canister filter leaks like mad. I am going to go to the hardware store to get some caulk tomorrow and see if I can't seal that sucker. But I need a contingency plan should that fail. My girl would be crushed if all that live rock she bought up and died on her while she is saving up money for a protein skimmer and power heads.

From what little I understand and what my girlfriend has told me, live rock pretty much filters itself... if you do a water change every week and have powerheads (??). I am assuming she wants a filter because we do not own a vehicle and it would be difficult to schedule a ride every week to get water. Secondly, she says flow is very important. Right now the water is sitting stagnant and that is bad she says. She looks pretty worried about it so I want to try and help.

So here is the core question, how do I keep the live rock from turning into just rock? Is there a cheap over the back filter that I can pick up that will circulate and filter the water? Maybe someone has a canister filter they don't need (and a laptop/pc that needs repaired perhaps?). Please help me help my girl.

[ShawnM]

Well u do need water movement is you don't have anything except rock and sand just try to find some one on here near u and see if u can borrow a power head. U should be able to buy one or two pretty cheap

Put those in there and with water movement the rock will be fine. Then just save up some money for all other equipment

[FarmerTy]

Pm'ed

[ShortCircuit]

Well u do need water movement is you don't have anything except rock and sand just try to find some one on here near u and see if u can borrow a power head. U should be able to buy one or two pretty cheap Put those in there and with water movement the rock will be fine. Then just save up some money for all other equipment

Thanks for the Info. I will look around for powerheads that I can get cheap or trade. My girlfriend looked real worried so I thought the situation was more dire then that.

[Timfish]

Having messed with both CPUs and saltwater I can tell you they don't mix at all, very bad for both! You do want to get some circulation going and even just an air pump would be helpfull. Some people like canisters but my experience pretty much coincides with yours, I haven't yet met an o-ring that would leak. I would encourage you to get your girlfriend Vol III of Delbeek and Sprung's "The Reef Aquarium". The chapter on filtering systems cover the main different methodologies from the very simple pumpless systems by Lee chin eng and Dr. Jaubert to the very complicated multi-tank systems in an unbiased manner. This can be a fascinating and very rewarding hobby and it can also be very frustrating one as well (and expect to hear very contradictory opinions ).

P.S. Charles Delbeek will be at C4 here in Austin in April and you can get it autographed.

[+brian.srock]

It sounds like your g/f is attempting to set up a FOWLR. Please check with her to make sure this is the case so people can help give you more specific answers. Also I would see if you can get her to register on the site so she can comb the forums for the info she's needing. If you are only setting up a FOWLR you really only need salt for 10% water changes, a brute trash can to hold the water and a power head to mix it all. You can use tap water which is how I started with my tank although when funds become available I would really get an RO/DI 5 stage unit as your first purchase. You can also buy the drinking attachment so you can have filtered tap water without having to buy water bottles so it'll pay for itself. I think that canister filter might be more trouble than what it's worth at the beginning stages anyway. The LR will filter everything and water changes will do the rest.

[+brian.srock]

Oh and I didn't have any circulation for the longest time. Check out my build thread here: http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/16238-taking-it-to-the-next-level/

It actually had no pumps for a whole year and I still have 1 of the 2 original clowns in my tank almost 3 years later.

[Peter Gott]

Part of the point with circulation in a tank where you are keeping just LR for now is gas exchange; to that end, following brian.srock's comment, I don't think circulation is crucial at this stage, as long as you have good gas exchange. At least, I don't think that your live rock is all going to die off if you go without circulation for a few days. Instead what I would do is just get an air pump and an airstone in there. The bubbles will cause some salt spray as they pop, but that won't be too big a deal. I've done this before with a 55g as well when my pump died, and it kept everything alive, including fish and corals. Incidentally, I've also run many a pico with only an airstone, and in that small a water volume the motion of the bubbles also causes enough circulation for the growth of coral. Anyhow that's my input; others may disagree, but from my experience, this will keep your live rock healthy at the least, and that's all you need.