Questions: Live Rock and Pot Rock / Other

[r8tdr]

What's your opinion in mixing these two?

i've seen so many beautiful reef tank pictures here and I envy those with live corals and other stuff. I wanted to put some live rock but afraid because I may not know how to respond if a problem arises(little black worms, etc...) Also i don't want exceed our electric bill if i place live corals due to the need of corals requiring special lighting, would look nice though, Need help if i should even go this route.


What I have for lighting is a 50/50 actinic(spell correct?) blue and ?


THanks in Advance.

[the_blue_tuna]

I believe you are confusing things. Live rock is "live" because of the bacteria's in it.It is true you can get "extras" many times , but you are buying the rock for filtration , not corals. The rock itself does not need any special lighting . Some of the coraline algae's will do better with more light( those pink and purple colors on the rock)If you were to get some hitchiker corals , most likely they would be something like mushrooms or polyps , as these guys would be more apt to survive the shipping (rock is usually shipped in wet newspaper, not totally in water) and these guys will grow under N.O. lighting , although they will grow better under better lighting.
Once your tank has cycled , and stabilized , then you can start adding corals you would like and can take care of. This is not something that happens overnight , or even in a few months , so you have plenty of time to do research . Go to the online fish stores and look through thier coral offerings to find some you like , then come back and do a search for a particular coral. You will be able to get lots of info that way. Good luck.

[r8tdr]

I believe you are confusing things. Live rock is "live" because of the bacteria's in it.It is true you can get "extras" many times , but you are buying the rock for filtration , not corals. The rock itself does not need any special lighting . Some of the coraline algae's will do better with more light( those pink and purple colors on the rock)If you were to get some hitchiker corals , most likely they would be something like mushrooms or polyps , as these guys would be more apt to survive the shipping (rock is usually shipped in wet newspaper, not totally in water) and these guys will grow under N.O. lighting , although they will grow better under better lighting.
Once your tank has cycled , and stabilized , then you can start adding corals you would like and can take care of. This is not something that happens overnight , or even in a few months , so you have plenty of time to do research . Go to the online fish stores and look through thier coral offerings to find some you like , then come back and do a search for a particular coral. You will be able to get lots of info that way. Good luck.

Thank you.

I apologize for mixing the question.

The thing is that what I have now (pot rock) eventually I want to replace with all live rock. So I'll take the suggestion and slowly remove the dead rock and replace them with live rock. Ofcourse not right away.