Utah rock?

I was at a LFS store last night shooting the breeze, and a person there told me that the Utah rock will not develop the anarobic zone like purchased live rock has. Has anyone broke an established piece open to see if after a given length of time the Utah rock has established the black center that he was talking about?

I have no personal experience with Utah rock. I am assuming because of the name that it is some type of rock that is mined in Utaha nd is being used for decorative rock in the home aquarium.

If such is the case my primary concern with using such a rock would be the leacing of heavy metals, such as copper into the marine system. Many of the rocks that are mined containmetals that will leach metals over a given time and continually to slowly relesae them until the levels become toxic and your tank crashes.

As far as the bacteria growth, I believe it is next to impossible for deadrock to develop anerobic regions if placed in a marine tank in a conventional use.

There was an experiment that took place using a piece of traditional liverock,a piece of dead rock, and a piece of rock that came to the wholesalers with a coral attached to it.

All of the rocks were housed in the same aquarium for three years. The system had no mechanical filtration but was run off of a refugium filter.

The rocks were removed from the tanks, broken up and examined. They found that the dead rock had developed no anerobic regions. They found that the traditional live rock had little anerobic regions and believed this was caused by several clogged pathways were previous bacteria had died, assumed to have happended during shipping. The liverock that came with a piece of coral was filled with anerobic regions. The rock was never removed from the water for an extended period the bacteria was able to survive.

A believe some of the other problems that are associated is that the aerobic bacteria multiplies very quickly covering the surface of the rocks, where the anerobic bacteria is slow growing and is lieft no pint of entry.

There has to be a source in the system to seed the dead rock. If the surface of the lr containing the anerobes is blocked by the aerobes then there is no chance that the anerobic bacteria will be able to enter the rock.

I am currently experimenting with several pieces of deadrock, burying them in a DSB to see if they are removed from an aerobic area and placed in an area with less oxygen where anerobic bacteria thrives, if the rock will be able to be colonized by the anerobic bacteria. I'm 5 months away from my first trial. I'll let you know.

How many times was the experiment repeated and what were the error margins and measures?

Then I dont really see what is achieved by putting up that information here either? Not knocking on you or anything, but someone might take an isolated finding for a fact of life and perpetuate it.
Growth rates etc are hard to measure and control, unless the environment is controlled by selectively releasing spores of different aerobic and anaerobic bacteria into a sterile system and then measuring their colonization rate and extent. Otherwise, such isolated findings have no meaning.

I have been told all of these stories by the persons trying to sell me the "live" rock, I have mixed rock in my tank, and the utah rocks have had the fastest coraline growth of any(they were white after spraying though), I have had a large Utah rock in my tank oh, near 6 months now, it is now totaly covered in purple coraline alge. I did my homework and used both, BTW, the  Utah rock is not mined, same with the sand, it is  found on the ground right were it was formed, is it millions/thousands of years ago?  This area(greater wasatch front) was once under a ocean also.

Brian

dadofrad wrote: ...Utah rock will not develop the anarobic zone like purchased live rock has. Has anyone broke an established piece open to see if after a given length of time the Utah rock has established the black center that he was talking about?

If someone opens an electronics box expecting to find food, then nature must take its course. Stop putting "do not eat" labels on dessicators.

So my underwater lego base helps my tank fight off evil in more ways than one?

Adam Blundell wrote: We DO want anaerobic areas in our rocks, not anoxic.Â

    

GEEEEEEEEKFIIIIIIIGHTTTTTT!!!!!!

Anaerobic literally means devoid of air and is used to describe activity (living or otherwise) or organisms in such a conditions (anaerobic glycolysis, anaerobic bacteria, anaerobic exercise etc)
Anoxia means devoid of oxygen which is a special case of
Hypoxia which refers to a state of depleted oxygen.

Several anaerobic bacteria are able to survive in various levels of hypoxia, anoxia included. I agree that hypoxia is enough for some denitrifying bacteria to do their job (using more abundant nitrates/nitrites for oxidation). Not all denitrifying bacteria die in the presence of oxygen, some can switch their metabolic process depending on whether there is oxygen or less of it, but most denitrifying bacteria require anaerobic(anoxic) conditions.