live rock

lmh11706 · #1 09/19/2005, 10:31 PM

have my first saltwater, a fowlr tank for about 5 months now.55 gal.i have about 1.75-2lbs of live rock[mostly carribean-dense-small-med pieces,somr tonga branch and a couple of figi.]i want to add corals but there doesnt seem to be enough room.all my fish have been in there for a while[another problem-i think i have too many].am i causing any harm to thre fish if i remove some rock and totally re-arrange the landscape to create more swim room and better flow.also the first 3-4 months the live rock was vibrant full of life and color but now 5 months in alot of urchins/mollusks feather dusters are gone-is it the 2 hitchiker crabs i have,which have grown quite large in a couple of months.are they killing the rock.please help

bertoni · #2 09/19/2005, 10:40 PM

[welcome]

You can usually remove live rock briefly from the water for rearranging, but sometimes that'll kill some sponge, etc, and that can get ugly.

Do you mean 1.75 lbs per gallon? If so, depending on the number of fish, you might be able to remove some rock a piece at a time and get rid of it.

Hitchhiker crabs sometimes are very destructive, but we'd need a picture to help.

Are you feeding any phytoplankton (like DT's) to keep the featherdusters alive? Even if so, losing such animals is fairly common as they don't always adapt to aquarium life very well. Same for molluscs.

liz3 · #3 09/19/2005, 10:42 PM

Well, what are you running for lights, filters, etc?

2 lbs of rock is not enough to start keeping corals.

What are your water peramaters for calcium.

You also said said you have too many fish..what are they and how many?

liz3 · #4 09/19/2005, 10:44 PM

Sorry, welcome first...and I guess I should have asked if that was per gal?

Die off is common for the first year of a newly established tank...and even later as light and water paramaters change.