How long for dry rock to function like live ocean rock

How long does it take for dry rock to function the same as live rock from the ocean?


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Brandon McHenry

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5 year old rock sounds like it should be pretty live to me!


it wont be exact but will function almost the same after 2 years and the longer the better
Agreed the older it is the more diverse it seems to be.


Although this rock is not a great "reef" rock, I collected it only because those barnacle shells were full of amphipods so I just shook it on a bucket of sea water to collect them.
But this is the tide pool I collect rock and amphipods in. This is in New York and at high tide the water here is 8' deep.


1591011876758.png
Those are some massive barnacles! Pretty neat!


You are very welcome and thank you.
You are also welcome!


Very good post!
This adds to the notion of biological filtration and porosity for bacteria homing. Artificial rock simply cannot replicate this. I would contend that these pores took ages to create, and for nature to replicate that in our aquarium, maybe never. Pumice, to me, seems like it would do really well, especially if seeded in the ocean. I am a huge fan of fiji rock, have about 10lbs in my tank, air freighted from Walt. This was a few years back, I got the leftovers from another project for someone else. This rock was crazy live, the stink of cycling is only learned through experience, lol. Great thread, and great post from up above :)
Great point! And thank you for your thoughts! This has been a really interesting thread to me and I think all of the information has been so valuable.
 

MabuyaQ

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So you believe that live rock from the ocean and dry rock will eventually function the same and have the same life in a reef tank after about two years?

Sorry for my late response, but real life things.... Depending on what dry rock you use, yes after about 2 years (those using a more biological and holistic approach to filtration and maintenance may get there in one year those that use a chemical approach may never get there) both types will 'look' (the original live rock will still have some larger species but the diversity and number of specimens will be equal) and function the same. The problem is that not all dry rock is the same (especially on the inside) let alone has the same properties as life rock. Even dense life rock is incredably porous, with the best rocks letting water flow through them. Something not all (man-made) dryrock is capable of, but former life rock that was dried (even some mined rock is still incredably porous) certainly is or can be capable of.
 
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Sorry for my late response, but real life things.... Depending on what dry rock you use, yes after about 2 years (those using a more biological and holistic approach to filtration and maintenance may get there in one year those that use a chemical approach may never get there) both types will 'look' (the original live rock will still have some larger species but the diversity and number of specimens will be equal) and function the same. The problem is that not all dry rock is the same (especially on the inside) let alone has the same properties as life rock. Even dense life rock is incredably porous, with the best rocks letting water flow through them. Something not all (man-made) dryrock is capable of, but former life rock that was dried (even some mined rock is still incredably porous) certainly is or can be capable of.
No worries! I agree that not all rock is the same (especially dry rock) and that should be considered when we talk about maturing live rock. I can see how the cement-like rock may not be a porous as mines dry rock etc. I’m sure this all plays in very heavily to how much life each type of rock can sustain. Thanks for your thoughts!
 

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You also have to concider the medium. Earthworms won't inhabit highly acidic soil, as an example.
So there are some serious doubts as to weather sea organisms will ever inhabit terrestrial rock or man made rock at all. Many reef organisms require chemical cues and such to pick their homes. Terrestrial rock doesn't have these cues and will take many years in the ocean.
This, I believe is why many tanks have so much un-explained die off in the first few years.
 

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Yes i do. I just turned around and took this.
thumbnail.jpg




The tank is loaded with more sponges than anything else and a look through the back of the tank has other sponges that don't like light.


Do you attribute most of your biodiversity in the tank from things collected in your local waters....sponges etc? What specific things do you collect when your out looking other than amphipods? I live near the coast here in San Diego and was collecting macro algae and amphipods. There are a lot of things in the tide pools that look interesting. I had the worst Aiptasia outbreak ever in this tank which, I finally shut down for a couple months. I started it back up about a year and a half ago with all dry rock and sand. I have a lot of amphipods but a definite lack of diversity.
 
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You also have to concider the medium. Earthworms won't inhabit highly acidic soil, as an example.
So there are some serious doubts as to weather sea organisms will ever inhabit terrestrial rock or man made rock at all. Many reef organisms require chemical cues and such to pick their homes. Terrestrial rock doesn't have these cues and will take many years in the ocean.
This, I believe is why many tanks have so much un-explained die off in the first few years.
That is a very interesting point. I wonder if not only rock porosity but rock composition plays into the success or failure of a dry rock tank.
 

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Do you attribute most of your biodiversity in the tank from things collected in your local waters....sponges etc? What specific things do you collect when your out looking other than amphipods?

I think the bacterial diversity is from the local rock as well as the amphipods and possibly the copepods. But the tropical stuff including sponges probably came in on corals. I never bought any tropical live rock that I remember.

I also get some algae blooms that may come from New York waters.
 

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Man, I have both from reef and from dry rock in my tank 5 years and dry rock never become as beautiful like rocks from reef. I even saw see slags on the same rock so they never move to another rocks. Just a year ago I could not explain why some my rocks have alot of algae and some do not have at all , now I know why
 
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Mark Novack

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40 year ago I set up my first saltwater aquarium. I purposely use the old verbiage. Undergravel filter and and hanging mechanical filter. Dropped in a pinch of fish food and waited 6 weeks. Placed in three fish (30 gallon tank) and no problems. Sure, it lacked pod life but it was bacterially sound to cycle fish breathing and defecating. Sometimes I wonder if we overcomplicate what happens naturally. I don't know where it comes from but the bacteria needed for the nitrogen cycle appears spontaneously without seeding.
 
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Man, I have both from reef and from dry rock in my tank 5 years and dry rock never become as beautiful like rocks from reef. I even saw see slags on the same rock so they never move to another rocks. Just a year ago I could not explain why some my rocks have alot of algae and some do not have at all , now I know why
Interesting observation! Do you happen to have pictures comparing the two?


40 year ago I set up my first saltwater aquarium. I purposely use the old verbiage. Undergravel filter and and hanging mechanical filter. Dropped in a pinch of fish food and waited 6 weeks. Placed in three fish (30 gallon tank) and no problems. Sure, it lacked pod life but it was bacterially sound to cycle fish breathing and defecating. Sometimes I wonder if we overcomplicate what happens naturally. I don't know where it comes from but the bacteria needed for the nitrogen cycle appears spontaneously without seeding.
I think you hit the nail on the head that there is a difference between rock being able to cycle nitrogen and keep fish alive and rock that is biologically diverse and can complete all of the different processes that are critical in keeping a healthy, established coral reef (especially SPS). I agree that sometimes we as a community over complicate things in this hobby and sometimes it’s best to look at what nature does. Nonetheless this is proving to be a very interesting discussion with lots of different viewpoints. Thanks for your contribution!
 

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It took over 15 months for my tank to stabilize and be able to sustain corals, especially hard corals. Things happen all the time but IME a mature tank which to me means a mature biofilter, is necessary for a healthy reeftank - as in the recovery is faster from any set backs for any reason.

My current tank was started with dry rock, in a combination of dry rock: Marco, Caribsea, real reef rock, Stax and also live sand in a bag. Tried to cycle it with my established live rock in there to seed and it was taking forever so I added my 2 year old seeded Brightwell Xport plate and 24 hours later I was cycled. Bacteria FTW.

I try to innoculate my system once a year with live rocks from the ocean, that are over-nighted to me from Florida. I've been lucky to have a source that will dive on a Monday, ship on a Tuesday and I get my rocks at the airport Wednesday morning, minimizing die off and keeping the microbiome as intact and complete as possible.

I don't think I will ever cycle a tank with dry rock again. The bacteria that is on CarbiSea possibly competes with the bacterias we use in the bottles, and the bacteria that is in the bagged live sand, and with any live bacteria from established tanks prolonging the cycle and consequently the maturity of a tank - IMHO. It's a lot of in-fighting, if you will, before a dominant strain or combination of bacteria gain a bigger foothold than the rest, and canibalize the rest or they die due to not getting food. The ugly stage is prolonged and front and center. I've received suggestions on cycling rocks ahead of time, this is not possible, at least for me, in an apartment in the New York Metro area.

The tank is stable as far as I can observe, swings and incidences hurt it less, which is not to say something major can't happen because it can, I'm just saying the recovery is faster with an established biofilter. Even if that biofilter is compromised, say by the use of antibiotics like chemiclean or something that kills the beneficial bacteria - the recovery is faster if the tank was mature when the set back happened. $0.02.
 
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It took over 15 months for my tank to stabilize and be able to sustain corals, especially hard corals. Things happen all the time but IME a mature tank which to me means a mature biofilter, is necessary for a healthy reeftank - as in the recovery is faster from any set backs for any reason.

My current tank was started with dry rock, in a combination of dry rock: Marco, Caribsea, real reef rock, Stax and also live sand in a bag. Tried to cycle it with my established live rock in there to seed and it was taking forever so I added my 2 year old seeded Brightwell Xport plate and 24 hours later I was cycled. Bacteria FTW.

I try to innoculate my system once a year with live rocks from the ocean, that are over-nighted to me from Florida. I've been lucky to have a source that will dive on a Monday, ship on a Tuesday and I get my rocks at the airport Wednesday morning, minimizing die off and keeping the microbiome as intact and complete as possible.

I don't think I will ever cycle a tank with dry rock again. The bacteria that is on CarbiSea possibly competes with the bacterias we use in the bottles, and the bacteria that is in the bagged live sand, and with any live bacteria from established tanks prolonging the cycle and consequently the maturity of a tank - IMHO. It's a lot of in-fighting, if you will, before a dominant strain or combination of bacteria gain a bigger foothold than the rest, and canibalize the rest or they die due to not getting food. The ugly stage is prolonged and front and center. I've received suggestions on cycling rocks ahead of time, this is not possible, at least for me, in an apartment in the New York Metro area.

The tank is stable as far as I can observe, swings and incidences hurt it less, which is not to say something major can't happen because it can, I'm just saying the recovery is faster with an established biofilter. Even if that biofilter is compromised, say by the use of antibiotics like chemiclean or something that kills the beneficial bacteria - the recovery is faster if the tank was mature when the set back happened. $0.02.
I like your point about a mature and diverse reef tank being able to bounce back from swings/imbalance quicker and without skipping a beat. That is a good observation! I also think it is cool how you reseed your tank every year to keep the diversity up. Great ideas!
 

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I’m battling with this now. Started with all dry rock and tried to seed with a small rock from my nano, but it didn’t workout that well. I dumped multiple bottles of bacteria in my tank to try to seed as well. Although it did fine with fish, my corals could be better. I broke down and had 30lbs of live rock from Florida shipped up to me two weeks ago hoping it will turn things around. Do you think diversity of the live rock matters? As in, getting rock from Florida, Fiji, and other places to combine in one tank? Or just so long as it has sponges and other life on it, it’s good to go? To contribute to your poll, I’d say well over a year for dry rock to become established enough to be successful in keeping SPS. By successful, I mean having them thrive and grow like crazy with vibrant colors. Yes, there are other factors in there too, but 9 months in, and my sps are just stagnant with growth and not very vibrant. Nutrients and lighting are there. I just don’t think the diversity in the tank is there yet to be stable enough for them to truly shine.
 
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I’m battling with this now. Started with all dry rock and tried to seed with a small rock from my nano, but it didn’t workout that well. I dumped multiple bottles of bacteria in my tank to try to seed as well. Although it did fine with fish, my corals could be better. I broke down and had 30lbs of live rock from Florida shipped up to me two weeks ago hoping it will turn things around. Do you think diversity of the live rock matters? As in, getting rock from Florida, Fiji, and other places to combine in one tank? Or just so long as it has sponges and other life on it, it’s good to go? To contribute to your poll, I’d say well over a year for dry rock to become established enough to be successful in keeping SPS. By successful, I mean having them thrive and grow like crazy with vibrant colors. Yes, there are other factors in there too, but 9 months in, and my sps are just stagnant with growth and not very vibrant. Nutrients and lighting are there. I just don’t think the diversity in the tank is there yet to be stable enough for them to truly shine.
I think as long as you introduce the diversity of life (sponges, worms, pods, stars, etc) you will see great improvements. As mentioned here throughout the thread it also seems like the density/porosity of the dry rock you started with matters in how well it will house the new life coming in. The more porous the better. I definitely agree that there is something that is not quantifiable or measurable when it comes to SPS success and it’s more than likely biological. Food for thought! ;Bookworm
 

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I started my tanks with only trans-shipped Fiji live rock, because dry rock was not readily available back in the day, and it just wasn’t how you started a reef tank back then. So I am of the opinion that biodiversity is key to a successful reef, and have been saying that for years. So in order to put my money where my mouth was, I decided to do a microbiome test of my tank. I had read about how old tanks can lose their bacterial biodiversity over time, and figured I should see where I stand. Mind you, I have no problems. I have excellent SPS growth, fish are happy, coralline encrusts like mad, so no reason to suspect I have a problem. So imagine my surprise when I got my microbiome test results and they revealed my tank is somewhere in the 5-10% range of bacterial diversity among tanks tested. Meaning at least 90% of tanks tested have more diverse bacterial populations than mine.
14455376-1418-4893-9514-c858fe2b0f58-png.1672959

Now I was already planning on making an order with Indo pacific sea farm, something I had already done in the early 2000’s. But this only reinforces the fact that I need to do something to increase my bacterial diversity.

I am not sure what to make of these results. They are kind of in direct contradiction to what we are saying here is important. Now I do have a large diversity of macro fauna - bristle worms, feather dusters, pineapple sponges, copepods, amphipods, etc... I haven’t had time to fully digest these results, as I literally got them on Friday. But it is certainly interesting in the context of this discussion.

I’ll leave that for the group to discuss. I’ll admit these results baffle me and don’t really make sense, especially in the context of what has been discussed in this thread. So what does everyone think? Picture taken 5 minutes ago:
122E8F14-A67B-40A7-AFC9-A5420AB30CFD.jpeg
 
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I started my tanks with only trans-shipped Fiji live rock, because dry rock was not readily available back in the day, and it just wasn’t how you started a reef tank back then. So I am of the opinion that biodiversity is key to a successful reef, and have been saying that for years. So in order to put my money where my mouth was, I decided to do a microbiome test of my tank. I had read about how old tanks can lose their bacterial biodiversity over time, and figured I should see where I stand. Mind you, I have no problems. I have excellent SPS growth, fish are happy, coralline encrusts like mad, so no reason to suspect I have a problem. So imagine my surprise when I got my microbiome test results and they revealed my tank is somewhere in the 5-10% range of bacterial diversity among tanks tested. Meaning at least 90% of tanks tested have more diverse bacterial populations than mine.
14455376-1418-4893-9514-c858fe2b0f58-png.1672959

Now I was already planning on making an order with Indo pacific sea farm, something I had already done in the early 2000’s. But this only reinforces the fact that I need to do something to increase my bacterial diversity.

I am not sure what to make of these results. They are kind of in direct contradiction to what we are saying here is important. Now I do have a large diversity of macro fauna - bristle worms, feather dusters, pineapple sponges, copepods, amphipods, etc... I haven’t had time to fully digest these results, as I literally got them on Friday. But it is certainly interesting in the context of this discussion.

I’ll leave that for the group to discuss. I’ll admit these results baffle me and don’t really make sense, especially in the context of what has been discussed in this thread. So what does everyone think? Picture taken 5 minutes ago:
122E8F14-A67B-40A7-AFC9-A5420AB30CFD.jpeg
First off, great tank! And wow those results are interesting! I did my masters in a microbiology lab so this is intriguing! Where exactly did you pull samples from? I guess just because your diversity is low doesn’t mean that the microbes you do have aren’t some of the most important ones. Also the microbiome is going to be drastically different if you pulled samples from water vs rock vs sand vs a coral’s tissue so that will obviously play a role. I guess there is just a certain something special that comes with using real live rock that helps with stability and success. Thanks for the contribution I really appreciate it!
 
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I started my tanks with only trans-shipped Fiji live rock, because dry rock was not readily available back in the day, and it just wasn’t how you started a reef tank back then. So I am of the opinion that biodiversity is key to a successful reef, and have been saying that for years. So in order to put my money where my mouth was, I decided to do a microbiome test of my tank. I had read about how old tanks can lose their bacterial biodiversity over time, and figured I should see where I stand. Mind you, I have no problems. I have excellent SPS growth, fish are happy, coralline encrusts like mad, so no reason to suspect I have a problem. So imagine my surprise when I got my microbiome test results and they revealed my tank is somewhere in the 5-10% range of bacterial diversity among tanks tested. Meaning at least 90% of tanks tested have more diverse bacterial populations than mine.
14455376-1418-4893-9514-c858fe2b0f58-png.1672959

Now I was already planning on making an order with Indo pacific sea farm, something I had already done in the early 2000’s. But this only reinforces the fact that I need to do something to increase my bacterial diversity.

I am not sure what to make of these results. They are kind of in direct contradiction to what we are saying here is important. Now I do have a large diversity of macro fauna - bristle worms, feather dusters, pineapple sponges, copepods, amphipods, etc... I haven’t had time to fully digest these results, as I literally got them on Friday. But it is certainly interesting in the context of this discussion.

I’ll leave that for the group to discuss. I’ll admit these results baffle me and don’t really make sense, especially in the context of what has been discussed in this thread. So what does everyone think? Picture taken 5 minutes ago:
122E8F14-A67B-40A7-AFC9-A5420AB30CFD.jpeg

What are you going to order from IPSF if you don't mind me asking? I'm a huge fan of them and have been shopping there since 1999 :). In fact, setting up a refugium to grow some tang heaven just to feed my tangs. They love the stuff especially the red and their colors are amazing. Real difference when I feed fresh vs. dry.

In any case I'm wondering because as a user of dry pukani in my current tank it takes a long time to mature. I'm 2 years in and can pick up a rock, turn it 90 degrees, and the face will look like I just put it in. No algae, no sponges, nothing yet on the front of it before I moved it is covered with life. To me this is why using dry rock, even if mixed with live seed, is a mistake.

I've not run the test you have although considering it. Would be interesting to compare. Prior to being furloughed last Friday I was considering moving some larger rocks to my sump and ordering a box of rock from TBS. Once I sort things out here next week maybe what I should do instead is do the same test you did, note those results, then do my plan on moving rocks to the sump and swapping out with TBS, wait a month, then retest :).

I think Richard has a pretty good backlog so this gives me time to think about this. But long and short of it dry rock isn't all that it is cracked up to be. Other than my children liking it since I didn't raid their college funds to buy rock :D

Gee...all this from me asking about ipsf - but I really love that place.
 

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First off, great tank! And wow those results are interesting! I did my masters in a microbiology lab so this is intriguing! Where exactly did you pull samples from? I guess just because your diversity is low doesn’t mean that the microbes you do have aren’t some of the most important ones. Also the microbiome is going to be drastically different if you pulled samples from water vs rock vs sand vs a coral’s tissue so that will obviously play a role. I guess there is just a certain something special that comes with using real live rock that helps with stability and success. Thanks for the contribution I really appreciate it!
Samples come from 2 places with this test. First is water from your main tank. A 60 ml syringe is filled with tank water and slowly forced through a floss filter to catch suspended bacteria. Second sample comes from a non photosynthetic area of the tank, like a return line or overflow tube. My swab was from the bottom of one of my return tubes in my corner overflow. A light brown bacterial film was pulled on that swab. The rest is the magic of how they sample and test for bacterial DNA.
 
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Samples come from 2 places with this test. First is water from your main tank. A 60 ml syringe is filled with tank water and slowly forced through a floss filter to catch suspended bacteria. Second sample comes from a non photosynthetic area of the tank, like a return line or overflow tube. My swab was from the bottom of one of my return tubes in my corner overflow. A light brown bacterial film was pulled on that swab. The rest is the magic of how they sample and test for bacterial DNA.
Very interesting, @AquaBiomics do you use 16S or shotgun if you don’t mind me asking? And do you do any testing for coral tissue microbiome? It would be interesting to know what groups are present in captivity and how they compare to wild corals. :D
 
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