Couple Of Questions

[lee8040]

i have a 126l tank and am doing a marine/fish only but with some live rock, no coral until i get more advanced. first question how much live rock will i need to add to the tank? also how long does the live rock and tank need to be running before i can introduce my first fish? thanks

 

[Aquascaper]

You would be looking at around 15kg of live rock for a FOWLR tank with another 10kg to go full reef.

Once the live rock is in you need to make sure it's 'cured', the source of the LR and how long it took to be moved into your tank will play a part in how long it takes to cure.
Once everything is settled with the water parameters you can start to add fish but much slower than you would with a freshwater tank.

 

[Donya]

You would be looking at around 15kg of live rock for a FOWLR tank with another 10kg to go full reef.

25kg in a tank this size seems like an awful lot, although obviously it would depend a lot on density and using base rock would drive it up. The typical guideline on this side of the pond for going all live rock (with no abnormally dense stuff) is 1lb/gal (US gal), so more like 1kg/10L or ~0.5kg/2gal (UK gal) (or just slightly more), which is more what I'm used to hearing quoted from the other side of the pond. 25kg of the nicest grade rock I've seen would not leave much swimming room. If a bunch of it is really heavy base rock then I could see the extra 10kg, but it would take up a lot of space otherwise.

(edited for typos...managed to slip into kHz instead of kg)

 

[Aquascaper]

I've always known guidelines to be 0.5kg per gallon for FOWLR and 1kg - 1.5kg per gallon for FR.

Therefore, if the tank is 126 litres that's approx. 33g so my calculations were:

FOWLR = 15kg
FR = 30kg

It's true that 30kg of LR wouldn't leave much swimming room but as I understand it the difference between FOWLR and FR tanks is not only the addition of corals but the 'fullness' of the rockwork and therefore a change in stocking from openwater swimmers to those that graze and hide in the rockwork. When I see a larger reef tank with tangs for example I've been lead to believe they are classified as a FOWLR with corals rather than FR due to the lower density of LR.

Does that make any sense? I'm not saying I'm right just trying to explain my suggestion a bit better

 

[Xraymark]

1kg for 10 litres is what I went with for a reef.