I picked up mine locally from @uniquecorals so there wasn't really a curing process, but I wanted to see what was on the rock (or in the rock). I have a bunch of colonial tunicates, which are kinda cool, but they spread like crazy. I also had some halimeda grow from mine and now it's growing in my nano system. I used to grow a few different species of halimeda in the 90's, so it's kinda cool to have some again.
Sweet, yeah it looks like good stuff and I'd prefer it over Gulf rock anyway. The price is just unfortunate but hey, the price is the price. I know over there that's the only source of real ocean live rock except for the maricultured rock so I understand.
I'll never start a tank with dry rock, mostly because it doesn't look good at all. To me, Marco rock is just plain ugly and has no character to it. But that's just me, I'm kinda old school in that way.
It's pricey, but you need far less than what we used to think, so a little goes a long way in establishing the good stuff.
I've always had a preference for live rock. It looks unnatural to start off with super white rock (or even worse fake Coraline) and i know people debate it all the time but even if you do lose bacterial diversity the dominant strain will be a natural one.
Absolutely. I will always use it for
If I'm not mistaken, only like 2% of marine bacteria are able to be cultured...the wide variety of strains unable to be cultured are naturally occurring though so it should be present in your tank as well imo. Sure there are beautiful dry rock starts after going through a terrible ugly phase usually but it still wouldn't feel the same even after.
