live rock

[crapbiker123]

What is the best way to grow stuff on the live rock?
I already have some stuff growing but I want more.

[SaltyDawg]

Depends on what you want growing on it. Higher output lights will grow stuff on LR.
Wayne

You best bet is time my friend. You can spped the process up a bit though depending on what you want to grow on it.

Coralline algae, I have found that lots of calcium, good Alk and PH levels in conjunction with lighting that favors actinic light to be best. I have also reframed from "blasting" my rock with halides too intensley. For example; I have a 75 gallon tank that I do live rock only in. In that system inaddition to the above recommendations, I use 3 x T-8 Blue Moon Triton lights on this tank only. I run the lights about 15 hours a day. I also dose SeaChem Trace as an addition. I have found that this works very well for me.

As far as Zooanthids, Mushrooms etc... get some small "Nano-Sized" coral frags/rocks and put these in your live rock work and they will take over sooner or later. Something I have done is to grow GSP on a 10 gallon glass bottom tank and then I scrape the matting off the glass bottom with a razor blade and then cut it into 1 inch squares and glue them stratigically on what ever I want to "colonize". I also glue any loose Zoo's to work work as well and they eventually take over. Ditto with muchrooms too. I find doing this will greatly speed things up considerable. I have also done this with Encrusting Montipora in Purple, and Oranage colors and this looks increadibly awesome on live rock!

These are the same techniques I use growing out frags for sale back to my LFS. Give some of them a try....

[SaltyMist]

In my experience, glueing mushrooms doesnt work. I've tried this a couple times and because mushrooms have a slimy foot, they have enventually come off of the rock that I glued them too. Sometimes you see nothing left behind, other times you may see some whitish material left behind from their foot still attached, but always they have come unattached for me and floated away.

I attempted using a toothpick through their foot, but either snails, hermits or water current eventually knocked them off. So now I just let them float to where they want (they usually end up in the dead spot in my tank where I have liverock rubble and attach them selves, then I glue the rock rubble they attached to , to a rock where I want them.

In any event, you either have to wait it out. My LR was pretty barren for the first 4 months or so, but now it's got lots of life, some that I dont see unless I turn a rock around or over, then I might discover a sponge or a bivalve clam, plenty of mini feather dusters, etc.

Or you can try to get a really really liverock from someone and put that in your tank and then just wait it out till what ever is on it, colonizes the rest of the rocks.

But I think just waiting is the way to go. Heck I even found a whitish colored crab in my tank before moving to my new house that we never put in the tank, was a hitchiker so small in one of the live rocks ages ago, and has stayed hidden till some friends children came over and stared at the tank for 4 hours, then they found it.

[malkore]

Try using a little net to hold it down to the rock, so you can remove the net after it attaches without using superglue.

I ordered some shrooms from liveaquaria.com and they sent em on a branch tonga rock. Iput that next to other rocks so hopefully they'll spread there.