Aqua Salt

do i need a special light for live rock in a salt water tank?

i want to set up a 30 gallon salt water tank and i am going to put live rock in it and i need to know if i need a special lighnt to provide the right conditions for the rock.

No you don’t need special lighting but I would get a bulb in the 6500 to 10000k rating for coraline algae growth.
Live rock is usually just dead coral rock with bacteria and all sorts of other critters living in it.
If you use enough live rock (30lbs) and enough live sand(at least 2″), a GOOD cleaner crew and enough current, You don’t need to put that filter on it or any other filter. (NITRATE FACTORY)
I would purchase a small protien skimmer though.
MECHANICAL FILTRATION
” This form of filtration is pretty cut and dry, all such devices use some method to trap matter and hold it for removal. This can be done by skimmers and all the various models that use a trapping material such as floss pads or sponges. A skimmer is in its own class though and one that I feel every tank should have. By removing dissolved organics before they can break down into nutrients is just to good of a deal to pass up. The other types that trap larger particles may do a good job for what they were designed to do, as long as they are kept clean, the longer that trapped material is allowed to remain in the water, the more of it will break down into nutrients, thus defeating the whole purpose of such filters. I personally do not use any of the filter pad/sponge type filters since I prefer to allow any and all micro life to remain in the tank to help keep the diversity of life and to act as a live food source. One other type of filtration that I suppose could be considered mechanical is the use of live plants to absorb nutrients, the most commonly used plants for this purpose are the macro algae’ and mangrove trees, with the use of macro algae, as the plant grows, it absorbs nutrients and thus competes with the pest type algae’ for food, when the macro algae is trimmed and thrown away, you are in effect, throwing away its absorbed nutrients also.”

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