Firstly i'd like to say i realise that live rock requires salt water to be "live" and therefore just dumping this into a tropical aquarium will both kill everything on the live rock and probably everything living in the aquarium.
My question is this, why don't we have something similar for tropical aquariums. Marine fish keeping has been a fashination of mine for a while and especially the fact that the nitrogen cycle is complete to stage 4 in marine tanks where anerobic bacteria inside live rock converts nitrate into nitrogen gas which then harmlessly gases off. This allows the water chemistry to be maintained at 0 ammonia/0 nitrite and 0 Nitrate.
Tropical fish keeping seems to have a fear of these bacteria. With people even turning over sand and keeping it shallow incase these bacteria form.
I do realise that plants can be used to absorb some nitrogen but just wondered if porous rock could be used in tanks or filters in a similar fashion to in Marine aquariums. I know I may be missing a massive issue here but just wondered if anyone else had ever concidered this or similar and if it was even viable. It may be a side effect of the bio diversity in marine tanks that makes this possible. But just thought i would share my thoughts.
My question is this, why don't we have something similar for tropical aquariums. Marine fish keeping has been a fashination of mine for a while and especially the fact that the nitrogen cycle is complete to stage 4 in marine tanks where anerobic bacteria inside live rock converts nitrate into nitrogen gas which then harmlessly gases off. This allows the water chemistry to be maintained at 0 ammonia/0 nitrite and 0 Nitrate.
Tropical fish keeping seems to have a fear of these bacteria. With people even turning over sand and keeping it shallow incase these bacteria form.
I do realise that plants can be used to absorb some nitrogen but just wondered if porous rock could be used in tanks or filters in a similar fashion to in Marine aquariums. I know I may be missing a massive issue here but just wondered if anyone else had ever concidered this or similar and if it was even viable. It may be a side effect of the bio diversity in marine tanks that makes this possible. But just thought i would share my thoughts.
