live rock sand question?

[an411]

What makes the sand and rock live if you didn't use live sand and dryed out live rock. Would anything revive them and make both live again. I am just curious if these organisms just come about from adding water to a tank such as microscopic organisms that may form?

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Adding a few handfuls of sand from an established aquarium - or a few small bits of "real" live rock - will seed your aquarium with all the critters and bacteria you need.

Transforming an entire tank of "dead" sand and rock into stuff that's indistinguishable from "live" rock will take some time, though. As far as beneficial bacteria and critters are concerned, a few weeks or months is probably OK. If you want your dead stuff to be totally encrusted with coralline and just crawling with all sorts of life, you'll probably be waiting more like a year or two.

The bigger your seed of live rock or sand is, the faster things will happen.

[an411]

I guess after hearing your reply I take it that nothing will come alive with out seeding.

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Nope.

Though, when you put ANYTHING in the tank that's alive (a fish, for instance) you'll get SOME seeding - at least of bacteria, though not very much at all.

"Back in the day," people used to establish bio filters in tanks without any live rock or sand at all, by letting the bacteria that hitch hiked in on fish slowly build up over time. With the availability of live rock and sand these days, that's obviously an outdated and inefficient choice, of course.

[kevin2000]

Beneficial bacteria will come on its own .. just needs an ammonia source (decaying fish food etc).

Pods and the other infauna that people associate with mature tanks will have to come from "seeding".

[an411]

great that is what I was looking for. I understand that without anything in the tank nothing is going to become alive magically. I was always curious about this subject. I mean I was thinking that it might have been something like how algae grows with nothing in a tank except sun and water

[der_wille_zur_macht]

The real thing is, there's living stuff all around us - algae spores, mold, bacteria, etc. It won't explode in population unless the conditions are right.

Now, of course, if you created a totally 100% sterile tank, no bacteria would grow in it, regardless of how much ammonia you dumped in - you need a seed culture of bacteria to get things going. Since none of us live in sterile environments, there's pretty much always a seed culture everywhere.

[kevin2000]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10325155#post10325155 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by der_wille_zur_macht
Now, of course, if you created a totally 100% sterile tank, no bacteria would grow in it, regardless of how much ammonia you dumped in - you need a seed culture of bacteria to get things going.

People cycle tanks all the time by simply dropping in something that can decomose into their tanks (fish food, dead shrimp, or even a few drops of pure unscented ammonia). You don't need live rock or an infusion of mature live sand to cycle a tank.

[der_wille_zur_macht]

My point is that the object you're dropping in (fish food, whatever) is covered with bacteria when you drop it in - it IS the seed, as well as being the food source.

My 100% sterile analogy was just to point out that if the tank really was 100% sterile, with NO source of bacteria at all, you could add pure ammonia or whatever other nutrients you wanted and you wouldn't see anything happen at all. Maybe this is stretching people's imagination a bit? Or maybe I didn't explain it well. . .