Well of course there are organisms that are known to be good to add, but it's not a full picture. I see people who seem to think that if they buy dry rock and a bottle of bacteria, they can wind up with something just as good as live rock. It doesn't work that way. Even dry rock that's put in the ocean takes years to become really nice, established live rock, and rock in an aquarium isn't surrounded by anything approaching the same amount of life that's around ocean rock. Dry rock just isn't comparable to live. Sure, you can wind up with something that works, but it requires a lot more effort and is generally more prone to failing than just putting pre-established live rock into a tank. You can't buy the stuff that comes in on live rock anywhere else. Even if we're just talking about known useful microfauna- there's, what, one place that sells some of those? And IMO it's all incredibly overpriced. They sell 6 small bristleworms for $30, last I checked.
Sourcing live rock is getting harder, yes, but it's not impossible. Currently, reefers usually have a choice between live and dry, albeit with shipping costs for live.
As for the future, I would hope that legality could wind up in a place where maricultured live rock is still perfectly fine. The reason it's harder to get live rock is mostly because places aren't allowed to chop up an existing reef and sell you the rocks from it, which IMO is very reasonable. What would be great to see is maricultured live rock in more places around the world, both for local-ish availability in the same country, and to be imported to everybody else.
If that doesn't work out... there's a market fo places to start making their own. And I don't mean the situation where they put dry rock in some water for a few months to grow bacteria. I mean, someone with a coral culture facility ought to start culturing live rock, too. Put some really good, mature live rock with some dry rock, feed the whole thing heavily, and wait. The best way to turn dry rock into live rock, if you can't get it into the ocean, is to put it in with other live rock. Some things don't reproduce in aquaria, but plenty would in the right conditions, and anyone doing this could raise other things in the tub as well. Use it as a coral growout or such.
Sourcing live rock is getting harder, yes, but it's not impossible. Currently, reefers usually have a choice between live and dry, albeit with shipping costs for live.
As for the future, I would hope that legality could wind up in a place where maricultured live rock is still perfectly fine. The reason it's harder to get live rock is mostly because places aren't allowed to chop up an existing reef and sell you the rocks from it, which IMO is very reasonable. What would be great to see is maricultured live rock in more places around the world, both for local-ish availability in the same country, and to be imported to everybody else.
If that doesn't work out... there's a market fo places to start making their own. And I don't mean the situation where they put dry rock in some water for a few months to grow bacteria. I mean, someone with a coral culture facility ought to start culturing live rock, too. Put some really good, mature live rock with some dry rock, feed the whole thing heavily, and wait. The best way to turn dry rock into live rock, if you can't get it into the ocean, is to put it in with other live rock. Some things don't reproduce in aquaria, but plenty would in the right conditions, and anyone doing this could raise other things in the tub as well. Use it as a coral growout or such.