Adding Liverock

[Fishobob]

Gday,

Well soon to be setting up my largish nano I have a question:

Should I add some flat live rock as a base first and then add the sand around it and then build my liverock on the base? Or should I dump the live rock on top of my DSB?

Which is more stable?

B4 u guys bite my head off about repeat q's I searched and didnt find anything. Feel free to bite my head off though if it with please u:P

 

Cheers Fishobob:P

[flaunt]

it probably depends most on how you build the rock structure. "dumping" live rock on anything isn't going to make it stable. if you have some fairly large pieces of rock to use as a base with or without flat ones underneath it should be fairly stable on its own. the pieces that you have to watch out for are the smaller ones, which are usually toward the top of the structure anyway, so i don't know that they'd be affected by the base rock being in the sand or on top of other flat rocks. these kinds of rocks typically get bulldozed before they fall on their own. some people use marine epoxy to hold their rocks together, but i don't think i would ever do that since it took a long time to become satisfied with the rock arrangement.

 

one good thing about providing a base of rock for the rest of the rocks is that you'll have more dark areas (caves) for critters to hide in and rock surface for cryptic organisms to grow on. a downside might be that in doing so you're reducing the surface area of your sandbed.