Dry vs live rock for new tank?

[aSaltyKlown]

Try AquaHaus in Springfield or Capitol Aquarium in Manassas. Their LR looked pretty decent the last time I was in either shop.

You can also check out WAMAS, a good group of local reefers. I get the majority of my corals from WAMAS members.

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

My vote would be live rock from a reputable source if possible. If you do go dry, either all or mixed with live, I wouldn’t add plain dry rock into the display with lighting day one. I would probably soak dry rock in a trash can or the display for a couple months without light but with flow and heat.

 

[Spare time]

How so?

After a year, someone is likely cought up on coralline, zooplankton, micro organisms. They also are likely done with their algae issues. What's left to deal with are pests, especially from lfs live rock. Corals (particularly lps) are essentially live rock so either way a tank gets some form of it. Ocean rock can be fun to get though. I would do ocean rock for a fish only tank since there are a lot of predators that can go after these pests that may not be safe with desirable inverts.


Either way works, Id like to say it's more of what issues you want to deal with rather than which is better.

 

[SunnyX]

Hello,

If I was setting up a reef today, from scratch, I would go with an 80/20 mix of rock. 80% dead, 20% live.

Place the dead rock in the main display and live rock in the sump. If you’re worried about mantis or pistol shrimp this is a good way to avoid them. Plus, you’ll get to customize the rock scape to your liking without having to worry about the shapes that are collected from the ocean.

Now, securing ocean live rock is going to be the tough part. There are some outfits down in the gulf of Florida that have spectacular rock, but more often than not, it’s sold out and you need to get on a waiting list.

As for the look of the rock itself, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Design the layout and structure with the desired theme and let the corals grow out.

In my system, I can’t even see the rock any longer in most areas. You can see what I mean in the video below.

Good luck and welcome back!

-Sonny

 

[Lavey29]

After a year, someone is likely cought up on coralline, zooplankton, micro organisms. They also are likely done with their algae issues. What's left to deal with are pests, especially from lfs live rock. Corals (particularly lps) are essentially live rock so either way a tank gets some form of it. Ocean rock can be fun to get though. I would do ocean rock for a fish only tank since there are a lot of predators that can go after these pests that may not be safe with desirable inverts.


Either way works, Id like to say it's more of what issues you want to deal with rather than which is better.

Interesting, I view it as nothing artificial will ever be the same or better then something natural made in God's vision. I just don't think man made rock will ever have the complete ocean essence that true ocean rock has.

 

[V A R I A N T]

I’ll be using dry CaribSea Life Rock for my next build. I already own it, bought it when it was on a fire sale on Amazon. In my last build, I purchased 60 pounds of live rock from KP Aquatics. I absolutely enjoyed this rock for the first month. So many varying life forms in the tank, the coloration of the rock, the sponges, etc. I even welcomed the pistol shrimp as it was something I hadn’t experienced in a build before. Then came the bryopsis that plagued the rock. Reeflux to the rescue. Then the next 10 months was spent trying to rid all the bubble algae, which I could never get under control. And then there were the 8”-12” fireworms that were buried in the rock. Those weren’t much of a nuisance but was yet another battle to wage. Eventually I took the tank down and donated the rock to someone who was willing to tackle the valonia. We all have different experiences which influence our next tank build. Keep an open mind that you experience will vary from another, and that every scenario will have its own maintenance requirements.

 

[kevgib67]

With over 17 years of reefing and multiple tanks I have used only live rock and always will. The only bad hitchhiker I ever got, mid 90’s, were bristle worms. Picked them out when I saw them. When I got back in the hobby over a year ago to my surprise they were mostly considered helpful cuc.

 

[vlangel]

With over 17 years of reefing and multiple tanks I have used only live rock and always will. The only bad hitchhiker I ever got, mid 90’s, were bristle worms. Picked them out when I saw them. When I got back in the hobby over a year ago to my surprise they were mostly considered helpful cuc.

I also have only used live rock for the diversity of micro life. Yes, I have always had bristleworms but they have never posed a problem. I have also never had dinos, which was not an issue for reefers back in the day when we all used live rock.

 

[GatorGreg]

I've seen reefers make stunning tanks with dry rock. Absolutely stunning impressive reefs. I'm not one of those people. I've searched high and low for their secrets. There's something that they're doing that not everyone is privy to and I haven't figured that out. Live rock for me. I had a reef tank as a careless teenager and it was so easy going it wasn't even funny. The thing was bullet proof and I couldnt hurt. It was neglected at times and just keep chugging along with only topping off and feeding. BOTH tanks as an adult were dry rock, dry sand and fish less cycles turned into literally the most stressful hobby I've ever had. Took a break for 1.5 years and now trying my hand at some smaller tanks with 100% Live ocean rock.


BRS and WWC have these beautiful tanks and while they may be aqua scaping those big tanks with dry rock. I'd bet those sumps are filled with live rock or bio media that's been chilling with live rock for extended periods of time. It also wouldn't surprise me if they have multiple systems plumbed together. Where new systems are being fed by mature systems. I could be totally wrong though lol. I mean if was a business owner in this industry and wanted to steer the industry in a direction (dry rock) where people would be having nothing but problems all the time and constantly needing to come to my website and purchase additives and chemicals and gadgets and gidgets to try and cure their Dino and cyano infestations. I'd probably promote that too! I'm not saying live rock isn't immune to those things. But it for sure is more forgiving in my experience.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

I'll be going with mostly dry rock but seeding with a batch of live base rock and sand from TBS for my next tank.

 

[Fishy Jacket]

Working on new build now. Picture below taken today. This time I am choosing to do everything very methodical/slow. I have decide on mixed reef, standard 180G (60x30x24). Like several people who jumped in on this posting, I have been out of the hobby for many years and only used live rock in the past, so much to learn. I plan to do bactiera in a bottle and then seed later with some live. Still debating best live seed approach, but considering ideas already mentioned plus buy some live, cook 6-8 weeks, and then add. The idea is to just add the bacteria diversity. I plan to do all of this fallow by not having a fish in the house. LOL

Some learnings on the dry rock so far...

1. Consider using CaribSea shelf rock for your base rock...same flat bottom, but really affordable compared to Marcorock. Obviously for small tanks it probably makes more sense to buy pieces on Marco base rock even though it costs more. I ended up buying all my rock from Saltwater Aquarium with mix of brands on non-base rock. My experience was great on the rock I purchased....very little breakage and the base/shelf rock was awesome. I found different brands of all the non-base rocks was essentially the same. As you can see in my pic, the material was the same (good luck picking out what is what after mixing it together) and probably mined in the same place in Florida. Maybe Marco was slightly better, but that could just be box to box variability. On the non-base rock It really comes down to learning how to break the rock correctly with chisel. BRS videos noted below helps with that too.
2. Watch BRS videos...first one says two part bad epoxy, mortar good and second one says two part good and mortar not as good. I have found the truth lies in the middle. Mortar on the bottom where amount/volume and real strength is needed. Two-part connecting rock as as you move up wher space is tighter. In both approaches small batches at a time. What makes videos worth watching is all the the technique stuff. You can tell these guys have done this many times and all the little "how tos" are really helpful. I am using their general approach...thick superglue/insta-set to start, mortar/ two part next, and then finish with very thin and rock sand to cover mortar/two part epoxy. For mortar I used the Marco stuff. If you have done any drywall repair getting the consistency right is not very hard (thin enough to work/some grit/fairly smooth but not runny and sticks together). BTW, I found some u-tube videos to just be wrong on E-marco mortar prep! Follow Marco instructions in terms of prep of liquid portion of the mortar. Although, I tried wetting rock surface as they suggest and that did not seem to be very helpful. Plus I was worried about running out of the liquid to add to dry mix. Given the wide range of two-part cost/price I am trying three...Two Little FIshes, SeaChem, Instant Ocean. What you see in pic are just the first two. Instant Ocean coming next few days.

In the pic you see I have used 2/3rds big bottle of BRS thick supperglue, one small bottle and a tube (also experimenting there). One tip on this...I refill small bottle from big bottle. Easier to work with. You just need to cut tip of small bottle a bit and not let it get plugged. I have now used all of the Marco mortar pail dry and do have maybe 10-15% remaining of liquid part. I have used two bottles insta-set and two 4 oz. sticks of TLF and SeaChem (each). Have used very little thin superglue at this point...just enough to test sand/thin superglue approach on the base rock where I used mortar. Worked great with two applications and canned air to remove loose sand between, per BRS video. Good luck!!

 

[GatorGreg]

One thing to be noted here is there may be a mixture of opinions here between two sectors of the hobby. Large reefers and nano reefers.....obviously it's much easier for someone with a Nano tank to fill that bad boy up with ocean sourced live rock than it is someone with a 180 gallon tank. That has to be taken into consideration. I filled my tank with aussie live rock that was bought and shipped to my door in 14 hours for like 130 bucks. If you're trying to go 1 pound per gallon here that would cost a 180 gallon tank owner almost 5000 dollars or more. That's a game changer there for most people.

 

[GatorGreg]

Working on new build now. Picture below taken today. This time I am choosing to do everything very methodical/slow. I have decide on mixed reef, standard 180G (60x30x24). Like several people who jumped in on this posting, I have been out of the hobby for many years and only used live rock in the past, so much to learn. I plan to do bactiera in a bottle and then seed later with some live. Still debating best live seed approach, but considering ideas already mentioned plus buy some live, cook 6-8 weeks, and then add. The idea is to just add the bacteria diversity. I plan to do all of this fallow by not having a fish in the house. LOL

Some learnings on the dry rock so far...

1. Consider using CaribSea shelf rock for your base rock...same flat bottom, but really affordable compared to Marcorock. Obviously for small tanks it probably makes more sense to buy pieces on Marco base rock even though it costs more. I ended up buying all my rock from Saltwater Aquarium with mix of brands on non-base rock. My experience was great on the rock I purchased....very little breakage and the base/shelf rock was awesome. I found different brands of all the non-base rocks was essentially the same. As you can see in my pic, the material was the same (good luck picking out what is what after mixing it together) and probably mined in the same place in Florida. Maybe Marco was slightly better, but that could just be box to box variability. On the non-base rock It really comes down to learning how to break the rock correctly with chisel. BRS videos noted below helps with that too.
2. Watch BRS videos...first one says two part bad epoxy, mortar good and second one says two part good and mortar not as good. I have found the truth lies in the middle. Mortar on the bottom where amount/volume and real strength is needed. Two-part connecting rock as as you move up wher space is tighter. In both approaches small batches at a time. What makes videos worth watching is all the the technique stuff. You can tell these guys have done this many times and all the little "how tos" are really helpful. I am using their general approach...thick superglue/insta-set to start, mortar/ two part next, and then finish with very thin and rock sand to cover mortar/two part epoxy. For mortar I used the Marco stuff. If you have done any drywall repair getting the consistency right is not very hard (thin enough to work/some grit/fairly smooth but not runny and sticks together). BTW, I found some u-tube videos to just be wrong on E-marco mortar prep! Follow Marco instructions in terms of prep of liquid portion of the mortar. Although, I tried wetting rock surface as they suggest and that did not seem to be very helpful. Plus I was worried about running out of the liquid to add to dry mix. Given the wide range of two-part cost/price I am trying three...Two Little FIshes, SeaChem, Instant Ocean. What you see in pic are just the first two. Instant Ocean coming next few days.

In the pic you see I have used 2/3rds big bottle of BRS thick supperglue, one small bottle and a tube (also experimenting there). One tip on this...I refill small bottle from big bottle. Easier to work with. You just need to cut tip of small bottle a bit and not let it get plugged. I have now used all of the Marco mortar pail dry and do have maybe 10-15% remaining of liquid part. I have used two bottles insta-set and two 4 oz. sticks of TLF and SeaChem (each). Have used very little thin superglue at this point...just enough to test sand/thin superglue approach on the base rock where I used mortar. Worked great with two applications and canned air to remove loose sand between, per BRS video. Good luck!!

That tank is going to be a stunner!! Beautiful scape and tank. I wish I had the confidence and funding for something like that

 

[AV corals]

Hi all,
One thing that seems to have changed since I was last in this hobby is the use of live vs dry rock and I’m really torn on what to choose for my tank setup. I scoped out some LFS and unfortunately most of the rock they had seemed to be full of aptasia already (boo). So if I go live rock I’ll go from somewhere online…but that’s also kind of risky because who knows what shapes I’ll potentially get.

Would love to get folks’ thoughts about live vs dry rock for a brand new tank setup.

My advice would be starting from straight RO saltwater you made from a bucket and dumping a bottle of bacteria. Let it run it’s course. It will take longer but! No pests from LFS. No unknown things you don’t know about. Trust. Trust. Need copepods? Buy em. Need phyto? Buy em. You can literally buy tons of micro organisms for your tank. Funny we can’t buy pests though… oh wait

 

[sharkyahd]

Went the dry rock route but added a small 1inch live rock pebble because I wanted scaping options I’ve had zero issues so far with it. I think most go half and half now a days. Like you said originally you don’t really know what’s in tanks or you know and you don’t want it lol

 

[GatorGreg]

My advice would be starting from straight RO saltwater you made from a bucket and dumping a bottle of bacteria. Let it run it’s course. It will take longer but! No pests from LFS. No unknown things you don’t know about. Trust. Trust. Need copepods? Buy em. Need phyto? Buy em. You can literally buy tons of micro organisms for your tank. Funny we can’t buy pests though… oh wait

Good luck keeping pests out once you start buying corals. I'm sure it can be done though. Just good luck

 

[AV corals]

Good luck keeping pests out once you start buying corals. I'm sure it can be done though. Just good luck

Oh I know! I follow a heavy process before I put anything in my tank #trustissues

 

[Fishy Jacket]

Good point on pests. I really doubt over time I will be able to keep all of them out and as many note most "pests" are good. I had a startup on new tank many years ago with live rock sourced from LFS and did nothing to check/trusted what they said/did not dip in high salinity/etc. What I had really bought was bristle worms with some rock. Of course thse aren't harmful and provide benefit, but the quantity I got with the live rock was ovet the top. Different time/place/tank it was aptasia which never took over the tank, but required regular maintenance to control.

All of this is why I am considering the "cook" approach after doing high salinity dip to see what I got/save what I want. For those not familiar, this has nothing to do with actually "cooking" the rock. There is a good video out there on it from Melev done several years ago as well as a post/thread with pictures. I will consider it a win if I can control what I put in tank in terms of crabs/shrimp/worms and hopefully no aptasia.

 

[robertjules1981]

Live rock is easier for the first year, dry rock is easier later.

Just curious, how so? Long time lurker. Planning a 200 gallon.

 

[Spare time]

Just curious, how so? Long time lurker. Planning a 200 gallon.

There isn't much competition or plankton in a new tank, so pest algae likely has an easier time. However, all tanks end up established with rock covered in corralline, pods, etc. The difference is, the pests you received with the live rock don't necessarily go away on their own (aiptasia, bubble algae, bryopsis, flatworms, predatory creatures). There are pest free live rocks you can get, which would be my number 1 choice if you want a compromise.