Live Rocks

[weisoon]

Read in some other forums that reefers advocate that the live rocks in our tank will loose it bio-diversity after some time, like after 1 year or thereafter. So replacing some pieces of the live rock will in fact stabilize the system. I guess the same applies to the sandbed as well as some will lay a thin layer of feshly collected seasand over the existing sandbed after some time. Anyone here have any experience? Cheers.

[ervine]

Huh I've always believed that the longer they are left in the tank the better or more "alive" they become...

Although there has been talk about DSB's crashing after a certain time...

[weisoon]

The longer they are left in the tank, the less diverse will be the bacteria life form. Remember the tank is an enclosed system, not like the open sea. After some time, some reefers believe that the enclosed system will be dominated by only a handful of bacteria thus causing the system to be unstable.

What they said about DSB crashing is due to heavy metal built up in the system. Accumulation mostly due to additives being added into system. No matter how pure an additive, there is never a 100%. There will be at least a 0.003% heavy metals. Example if you dose Kalk every day in a high calcium depletion system, the amount is quite significant. This is where a calcium reactor is a more natural option. Cheers.

[Achilles Tang]

Guess, that's true with regards to loss of biodiversity. Although there will be some organisms that turn up later on that will surprise you! I noted that with the feeding of live phytoplankton, you can sustain biodiversity for a much longer time.

I have tunicates, mini featherduster worms and sponges which keep growing as a result.

I used to have a lot of copepods in the past, than later on, the amphipods were the dominant species of pods in my tank.

I think we have to be mindful of possible predation & eradication of the 'little creatures' and taking care of them via feedings of the right food eg. phytoplankton, to keep biodiversity of microlife in our reef tanks.