How’s my logic? - adding biodiversity to promote stability to a new tank start with dead rock.

[Kenneth Wingerter]

Thank you Randy. In addition i will add bottled bacteria and a coraline, cheato, pods kit from Algea barn. I have no source on pest free live rock. I am curious, how you would start a new tank that will be mixed reef with SPS? What else would you add that you could not pull from your own tanks?

You can also get an anaerobic, probiotic bacteria from AlgaeBarn that will aid in nitrogen cycling and consume organic wastes (PNS ProBio). https://www.algaebarn.com/blog/advanced/purple-non-sulfur-bacteria-and-natural-aquarium-filtration And if you haven't obtained all your rock yet, I believe you can source some really nice and naturally (but sustainably) sourced dry base rock from them. It's basically ancient reef rock that is quarried from somewhere in coastal Florida? Anyway, while people are correct that you'll never be able to totally avoid pests, it sure helps to have that pest-free assurance when you're first cycling like 100 lbs of it and aren't able to closely inspect every dang piece. After that, yes, much easier to inspect/dip/clean each little frag you get. Just my 2 cents!

 

[ReefEco]

I've been looking into kpaquatics cultured live rock, which actually looks pretty good and I might consider adding some to my aquascape which will be mostly dry rock. I'm thinking about quarantining maybe 15 lbs of it for a couple months with light, and adding various bristle worm and crab traps to the QT tank to try to remove any pests before adding it to the display. I'm hoping with a 2+ month quarantine any coral or fish predators will die off too, but who knows. Does anyone else have experience doing this? I doubt it will be fool proof, but it might add some additional biodiversity beyond the IPSF.com critter kits I plan to add...

 

[ScottB]

I've been looking into kpaquatics cultured live rock, which actually looks pretty good and I might consider adding some to my aquascape which will be mostly dry rock. I'm thinking about quarantining maybe 15 lbs of it for a couple months with light, and adding various bristle worm and crab traps to the QT tank to try to remove any pests before adding it to the display. I'm hoping with a 2+ month quarantine any coral or fish predators will die off too, but who knows. Does anyone else have experience doing this? I doubt it will be fool proof, but it might add some additional biodiversity beyond the IPSF.com critter kits I plan to add...

That strikes me as a good compromise. I am a big fan of live rock, but suffer some consequences for that preference.

Might need to ghost feed a bit here & there, keep temp/salinity, and throw in some modest flow too.

 

[ReefEco]

Thanks @ScottB - agree totally, I would use my coral QT system which is about 30 gallons plus sump, complete with flow and skimmer, and adequate light, etc. I would assume the rock would go through a small cycle in that case, but maybe I could pre-cycle the QT tank as well like I do for corals. It would give me a chance to scrub off any macro algae as well. When I used cultured live rock ~20 years ago there was a kind of sargassum type algae that was stubborn and tangs wouldn't eat...