I have been in the hobby around 15 years now and I am starting to ponder if it is more difficult for newbies now than it was then? When I started you could walk into a LFS and buy beautiful, mature ocean rock that in many cases was already growing coraline algae and harbored tons of excellent microfauna and pods. These days newbies are starting with dry rock and dry sand and are left with what I believe to be a much longer period of time before they can add corals and fish successfully. Am I totally wrong here?
I think a tank is easier and more stable with real live rock early on.
All this sterile rock I believe is why there are so many cases of Dinos. There just is not the biodiversity to prevent them especially early on and this makes it hard on the new reefer. Can they be over come? Sure they can. Also all this bare rock leaves space for other types of algae to colonize like bubble algae or even things like vermetid snails.
I had a 100 gallon + live rock bin in my basement for about a year and in it was a few pieces of bubble algae and it was never a issue. I decided to throw some dry rock in there to help cycle it and it got covered in bubble algae in months. Just no competition.
Last edited: