4 Benefits of Adding Live Rock to a Saltwater Tank

Adding live rock to a saltwater aquarium is a popular choice among aquarists. However, this ocean-sourced or synthetic item isn’t for looks alone. Including live rock can provide your tank with a variety of benefits. The staff at Aquatic Warehouse, a trusted provider of saltwater aquarium supplies, explains a few of these key advantages.

1. Acts as a Natural Biological Filter

When live rock is collected and cured, most of the marine life it contains is killed off. However, a large portion of the beneficial aerobic and anaerobic nitrifying bacteria survives. Once it’s placed in the tank, these colonies grow to provide a main biological water filter. Live rock provides more surface area for these bacteria to grow than most artificial surfaces can offer. This porous surface naturally offers more area contact with the water column, letting the beneficial bacteria work more effectively as well.

2. Helps with PH Levels

Those with any saltwater aquarium experience understand how pH levels need to be maintained to provide proper water quality for certain algae, corals, and other organisms. Introducing live rock to your saltwater aquarium, be it fish only or even a coral reef tank, can help you maintain the pH levels, and it also provides a constant source of calcium that stabilizes those levels. Some enthusiasts rely on things like a calcium reactor to release calcium-rich media. Live rock can help with supplementing a reactor or eliminate the need for it in some situations. As coralline colonies and hard or soft corals establish themselves, they will require higher levels of calcium. Live rock can provide a base and starting point for the calcium and also a great surface to grow on.

3. Makes a Great Aquarium Decoration

The addition of live rock to a saltwater fish aquarium offers you a natural looking decoration. The look of the rock will change over time when various hues of coralline algae create a home on it. In a reef tank, corals will grow on the live rock, making it a great anchoring point for hard and soft corals. Adding live rock also provides depth to a tank. Proper placement can create multiple levels or shelves while keeping the natural look that’s critical for many aquarists. In a saltwater fish tank, the percentage of live rock compared to the water volume isn’t really relative, but it’s very important to a coral reef tank. We recommend a minimum of 30-40 percent tank volume of live rock. The importance for biological surface area bacterial coverage cannot be minimized here for a healthy, well-established reef environment.

4. Provides a Natural Environment for Tank Inhabitants

Algae and corals aren’t the only ones who take advantage of live rock. Live rock also provides shelter and hiding spaces for fish. By breaking up the water column, it can help the fish establish territories. Smaller inhabitants, like pods, use the rock for cover. Friendly detrital worms can thrive with the addition of live rock to the tank, and the rock can also provide various intensities of light that fish may appreciate as well as alter the water current in a natural fashion.

At Aquatic Warehouse, we provide everything you need to keep your saltwater aquarium. running smoothly. The same goes if you have a freshwater tank. We even carry a wide array of high-quality freshwater planted aquariums. Stop by our store in Kearny Mesa, check out our website, or give one of our aquarium experts a call today at 858-467-9297.