if i put a rock in my 10 gallon can it turn live? the lady at the pet store said if you put a rock in it will eventually turn live with all the alge and stuff. Is this true?

It will eventually start growing bacteria...but it is not Live Rock....You can seed lace rock with real live rock...but it is not the same!!!

Can it do the same job? ..what exactly is the purpose of live rock.. mainly filtration?

Can lace rock do the same thing as Live Rock??? Live rock is very porous...and comes packed with live bacteria and other critters.... Live rock does filter...lace rock will take a lot of time to come even close to giving you the same filtration that Live Rock will...

can a live rock turn dead?

Yes....leave it out of the water and everything dies!!!!

Thats a shame.. means more collecting from the wild

Live rock scares me, I found a massive worm thing in one once.. (when I worked in a lfs).

Yep...that can happen!!! But most of these critters are ok for the reef tank... some are even a benefit to the clean up crews... like bristle worms....

but you know some places are not taking from the sea, they make there live rock hun.

thats why the lady at the pet store told me to just get fake rock and it will turn live. she said that they make their own live rock but it takes pretty long.

Oh yeah a very long time....thats why most places will tell you to save money is to get live and non live, this way the tank has the boost

Hi koko...I know, and this isn't all bad either, they call it cultured in most places....it also comes by other names too, but like I said in a preceding post within the quote marks...they have been seeing good results from this type of "cultured Live Rock"... I have a local LFS in my city that cultures their own live rock in very large tanks...they put it in with thousands of lbs of true live rock and it is in there for several months before sold....

Most of the 'fake' rock that our young new reef enthusiast is talking about, is a lace rock...it will develop bacteria but it is not generally as effective as real live rock because it is made of different material...most live rock is made up of a mixture of dead coral heads and marine substrate.... It is very porous and loaded with all the right stuff for the best bio-filtration possible...
On the other side is this new 'cultured live rock'! It is made very porous and producing very good results in the reef tank!!! The sweet thing about this man made live rock is….the $’s…..It is about half the price, and comes without the unwanted hitch hikers….
One of the draw backs about this cultured live rock is you don’t generally get any of those good hitch hikers that we all love to get free with the rock!!!!