MarcoRocks advice

[mjk42]

Hi everyone. I am planning my first reef tank (4x2x2 ft, 94 gallon, UNS R120) and was hoping for some advice on which rock might be best. I really like the look of the negative space aquascapes and it seems that using the Marcos regular reef saver rock (not shelf or hybrid) with some flat base rocks is a pretty good place to start. I'm not sure if the "coralline" colored rock is worth the extra cost? Any experience with this? Aside from less obvious brown/green ugly stage of the rock as the tank matures is there any other reason to use this? Was planning to get ~100lbs of rock to build the scape.

Appreciate any advice!

 

[JumboShrimp]

If you like the 'purple' look, as many people do, then unless you have extreme patience, maybe buy your rock (and Marco cement) purple from the get-go. White rock can eventually get there on its own, but it might be like waiting for the return of Hailey's Comet. Lol.

 

[slingfox]

I started my first reef tank with MarcoRock. They didn’t have the purple rock then but I bought some aquarium safe paint used to paint MarcoRock pink and purple. It looked nice but I don’t think it was worth the extra cost since the white Marco rock should color up over time naturally. I have also heard that the colored MarcoRock doesn’t retain its painted color well and is therefore not worth the extra expense.

After two years I did a tank reset and replaced the MarcoRock with live rock from Australia. I have only had that rock for a month now but it is 100x better than MarcoRock.

You can make great looking aquascape either MarcoRock. If this is your first tank my #1 piece of advice is to include (1) some amount of rock from the ocean or a mature reef system, and/or (2) live sand from one of the ocean live sand sellers from Florida.

If you look at My Tank Thread you can see the Markorock aquascape (initially painted purple) vs. Australian Live Rock aquascape

 

[petcellar]

I think the bigger discussion is the dry rock vs live rock debate, but if you decide to go with dry rock then I think that Marco Rock is a quality product.

I ended up going dry rock/live sand and that approach has worked out well for me. I did not do an NSA type scape though.

I used the purple rock/marco cement. I think that it is worth it. Eventually it's all going to look the same, but you do avoid that dirty white look at first.

I have a current FTS on my build thread for an example.

 

[JumboShrimp]

( @petcellar , I checked out your thread. I agree-- if you hadn't started with the purple rock/cement, it would have looked 'dirty-white' for a long, long time.)

 

[rhitee93]

I started with primarily Marco rock, and like the product. I don't think it would be worth getting the pink/purple dyed rock as it will all turn grey in a few months. I had a couple of purple rocks in the back corners, but you couldn't tell after a short while.

My tank on day 1:

Six months later:

Here is is after two years:

 

[JumboShrimp]

@rhitee93 may have just proved me wrong; that's a quick near-total color-transformation for just 6 months!

 

[rhitee93]

@rhitee93 may have just proved me wrong; that's a quick near-total color-transformation for just 6 months!

Lol, not my intent :) The color change happened rather suddenly. Here is the tank at about 3 months. Still a lot of white:

 

[mmodo]

I got the dry white rock (I don't mind it looking ugly for a while, it's part of the process) and put it in a QT tank for inverts and corals. The rock turned green fairly quickly (not algae, the rock was bare) then slowly had some coralline take over. So from May to now, it's all green with 10% purple coralline splotches.

 

[BryanM]

Live rock FTW.

And would you look at that huge derasa clam!

 

[mjk42]

I started my first reef tank with MarcoRock. They didn’t have the purple rock then but I bought some aquarium safe paint used to paint MarcoRock pink and purple. It looked nice but I don’t think it was worth the extra cost since the white Marco rock should color up over time naturally. I have also heard that the colored MarcoRock doesn’t retain its painted color well and is therefore not worth the extra expense.

After two years I did a tank reset and replaced the MarcoRock with live rock from Australia. I have only had that rock for a month now but it is 100x better than MarcoRock.

You can make great looking aquascape either MarcoRock. If this is your first tank my #1 piece of advice is to include (1) some amount of rock from the ocean or a mature reef system, and/or (2) live sand from one of the ocean live sand sellers from Florida.

If you look at My Tank Thread you can see the Markorock aquascape (initially painted purple) vs. Australian Live Rock aquascape

Your tank looks amazing! I think my most realistic option will be to use the live sand with the dry rock. Is the caribsea sand good? I you mention (and reviews on BRS) that the original grade sand blows all over but the special grade seems like it could be a better option. I also have a wife that may not be thrilled looking at the ugly phase of the white rock so will probably end up going with the colored rock as well haha.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/20-lb-special-grade-arag-alive-reef-sand.html

 

[JumboShrimp]

That Special Grade is the exact sand you want, IMO.

 

[Arkayology]

That Special Grade is the exact sand you want, IMO.

It's an OK budget option, but I am not sure how alive that sand really is. Getting the Tampa Bay Saltwater live sand is a better option if you have the money to spend IMO.

 

[JumboShrimp]

True-- I'm not so convinced the 'live' aspect of it is all that useful. I just really favor the grain size-- not to fine, not too course. Maybe seed the tank with some rubble rock from Tampa Bay?

 

[mmorrison55]

I have an NSA made out of Marco rock, and my take on it after having one, is that the NSA looks good and cool initially, but once your tank matures and your corals grow out and fill in space, yiu are not going to see much of the rock scape.

It’s also harder to get your tank cycled properly and yiu will most likely have some ugly stages and algae outbreaks to deal with when using the Marco rock.

I ended up adding 15-20 lbs of Tampa bay saltwater live rock to my tank when I did a reset a few months in, and oh boy what a difference the live rock made.

If I were starting a new tank today I would probably do it 100% live rock.

If you are dead set on the nsa Marco rock scape, then I would suggest getting some premium live rock pieces to add around your sand bed to help “seed” your tank. And throw some “base” live rock to throw in the sump.

 

[slingfox]

Your tank looks amazing! I think my most realistic option will be to use the live sand with the dry rock. Is the caribsea sand good? I you mention (and reviews on BRS) that the original grade sand blows all over but the special grade seems like it could be a better option. I also have a wife that may not be thrilled looking at the ugly phase of the white rock so will probably end up going with the colored rock as well haha.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/20-lb-special-grade-arag-alive-reef-sand.html

That Caribsea Live Sand is just sand with bottled bacteria added. Ocean live sand is very different since it is sand from the ocean.

If you go with MarcoRock + Caribsea live sand that is pretty much a dry rock system with bottled bacteria. That is what I did with my first tank and I would never do it again. I spent or lost a crap load of money dealing with the uglies. I would have saved money buying live rock from the start. The positive of that first two years of struggle is I know how to deal with most uglies now

When I reset my tank recently, the first thing I did was replacement my rockwork with live rock from the ocean. It has only been 5 weeks so far but it has been smooth sailing so far (nutrients low and stable).

 

[mjk42]

It's an OK budget option, but I am not sure how alive that sand really is. Getting the Tampa Bay Saltwater live sand is a better option if you have the money to spend IMO.

This has all been very helpful! I looked at the Tampa Bay saltwater options and it seems like planning for all live rock and live sand would cost a small fortune for what they recommend for a 90 gallon tank (1lb of base and 1lb premium per gallon for 180lbs of rock?!?) It seems like the overwhelming recommendation is to incorporate some amount of REAL live rock or live sand to help the tank start up and maybe offset the rest of the rock structure with the Marco rock. Of the options that ship UPS instead of air cargo they have 15lbs of base live rock for $120 that I could put in sump, 15lbs or nano premium to add to the rock scape in display and live sand 20lbs for $135 that I could maybe mix with the special grade dry sand. Would this seem like a reasonable thing to do?

This might be a stupid questions but how common is it to get bad pests etc from the live rock. The pictures of the premium rock on the website looks REALLY alive with fairly large plant life etc. I have heard that things like aiptasia can be a pretty big issue and just want to balance the risk of on problem with another.

https://tbsaltwater.com/products/premium-live-rock
Thanks everyone!

 

[slingfox]

This has all been very helpful! I looked at the Tampa Bay saltwater options and it seems like planning for all live rock and live sand would cost a small fortune for what they recommend for a 90 gallon tank (1lb of base and 1lb premium per gallon for 180lbs of rock?!?) It seems like the overwhelming recommendation is to incorporate some amount of REAL live rock or live sand to help the tank start up and maybe offset the rest of the rock structure with the Marco rock. Of the options that ship UPS instead of air cargo they have 15lbs of base live rock for $120 that I could put in sump, 15lbs or nano premium to add to the rock scape in display and live sand 20lbs for $135 that I could maybe mix with the special grade dry sand. Would this seem like a reasonable thing to do?

This might be a stupid questions but how common is it to get bad pests etc from the live rock. The pictures of the premium rock on the website looks REALLY alive with fairly large plant life etc. I have heard that things like aiptasia can be a pretty big issue and just want to balance the risk of on problem with another.

https://tbsaltwater.com/products/premium-live-rock
Thanks everyone!

180 pounds doesn’t make sense for a 90 gallon (except for the company selling the rock!). Your proposed plan seems like a good setup.

If I was in your situation I would probably just go with 100% live ocean sand, buy some rubble to put into the sump, and go all MarcoRock for the aquascape. One major challenge with live rock is it is much harder to aquascape than MarcoRock which can be designed and glued outside of the tank.

I have ordered live rock three separate times from two vendors and have never had any issues with pests. From Florida I purchased from KP Aquatics twice. Those rocks came full with life. What I did to get some of the pests out was put the rock in hypersalinity which causes many critters to move out of the rock. I never had any issues with nuisance algae but I did go through and removed vegetative growth I was unsure about.