I will give you my opinion on your question first before my overall experience of 20 plus years. Why not take a medium size piece of the dead rock (assuming it's clean and also assuming it's not like dead pukani with it's large phosphate leaching) and put it into the sump of the existing live rock tank. After a few weeks or so then transfer that to the dark garbage can to seed the dry rock? That's what I would do.
I remember the days when my dad set up the under gravel filter and we did the damsel, dead coral and even tried the purple tip anemones. My dad didn't have a science background and just tried to do his best in a time where information could really only be gathered by books (we had none) and the LFS who were way less helpful than they are now.
In high school I remember us having a 55 gallon that we just had fish that we kept and a large snowflake eel which we loved as kids. This was when the wet/dry bioballs and sumps were the latest rage. We never had a skimmer and fish miraculously lived! LOL.
In college I had no money or time to try for a tank. Near the end of college I was accepted to medical school and decided that since I was gonna be stuck at my apartment I would try and start my first reef. I bought a used Oceanic 110 and I ordered my first live rock from TBS and it was amazing. We had some tanks in the department I was working in and we put the rock in the tank to keep it wet until I moved. We found a mantis shrimp hitchhiker which was cool bc my friend kept it and I got it out before setting up the tank.
The tank set up relatively quickly (Berlin method) and did very well. 4 months after setup we had a storm that took out power for 3 days and the tank crashed and I was super sad (as all tank crashes are) and debated quitting. But to my surprise after a few months of the restart (with no new rock) a lot of life survived the power outage and 60 degree water from the winter time crash. I am talking zooanthids, mollusks, some sponges etc. It really taught me a valuable lesson about the ability for life to find a way to live. The tank was just softies/LPS w VHO lighting and fish. I made all the rookie mistakes with gsp and xenia and mushrooms. The whole tank was overgrown but I loved it.
I kept the same tank through a move to another apartment and then even across state lines (vowed to never do that again despite not losing a single coral or fish). When I moved to AZ I wanted to wait to get a more permanent living situation before setting up again. But 8 years out of the hobby later things dramatically changed with all the dry rock craze and no more access to the good live rock. Now controllers were the rage, LEDs, GFO vs algae reactors etc. I got another used tank this time Red Sea 650 Max S to experiment with and try SPS this time.
After all the research I went with dry pukani. Man. What a pain despite it being beautiful rock. Took forever to leach out the phosphate in the garage, and still went through ugly phase. Much worse phase than what I ever had with the real live rock. The most valuable thing I take away from this experience with rock is that it's much easier to start a new tank with already seasoned rock. I don't have the patience to deal with the weird phases of dry rock. I never had cyano on other tanks.
This has been long winded so apologies!
TL/DR:
Dry rock is a slower, uglier process but does allow for cool aquascapes. If you can, try and seed it prior to display tank.
Some of the new tech is really cool and convenient, but it also has potential to massively inconvenience you or cause disasters. They are not set it and forget it.
You can have an amazing tank with minimal equipment. If you are a person that wants/needs quick results or a full reef earlier then stay away from SPS and stick to softies (not that there is anything wrong with that btw). Any downturn in SPS (and it will happen at some point) takes longer to correct than softies which is annoying.
The longer you are around the hobby the more in depth you plan each new tank. It's such a wonderfully satisfying journey filled with all the emotions of life.
I remember the days when my dad set up the under gravel filter and we did the damsel, dead coral and even tried the purple tip anemones. My dad didn't have a science background and just tried to do his best in a time where information could really only be gathered by books (we had none) and the LFS who were way less helpful than they are now.
In high school I remember us having a 55 gallon that we just had fish that we kept and a large snowflake eel which we loved as kids. This was when the wet/dry bioballs and sumps were the latest rage. We never had a skimmer and fish miraculously lived! LOL.
In college I had no money or time to try for a tank. Near the end of college I was accepted to medical school and decided that since I was gonna be stuck at my apartment I would try and start my first reef. I bought a used Oceanic 110 and I ordered my first live rock from TBS and it was amazing. We had some tanks in the department I was working in and we put the rock in the tank to keep it wet until I moved. We found a mantis shrimp hitchhiker which was cool bc my friend kept it and I got it out before setting up the tank.
The tank set up relatively quickly (Berlin method) and did very well. 4 months after setup we had a storm that took out power for 3 days and the tank crashed and I was super sad (as all tank crashes are) and debated quitting. But to my surprise after a few months of the restart (with no new rock) a lot of life survived the power outage and 60 degree water from the winter time crash. I am talking zooanthids, mollusks, some sponges etc. It really taught me a valuable lesson about the ability for life to find a way to live. The tank was just softies/LPS w VHO lighting and fish. I made all the rookie mistakes with gsp and xenia and mushrooms. The whole tank was overgrown but I loved it.
I kept the same tank through a move to another apartment and then even across state lines (vowed to never do that again despite not losing a single coral or fish). When I moved to AZ I wanted to wait to get a more permanent living situation before setting up again. But 8 years out of the hobby later things dramatically changed with all the dry rock craze and no more access to the good live rock. Now controllers were the rage, LEDs, GFO vs algae reactors etc. I got another used tank this time Red Sea 650 Max S to experiment with and try SPS this time.
After all the research I went with dry pukani. Man. What a pain despite it being beautiful rock. Took forever to leach out the phosphate in the garage, and still went through ugly phase. Much worse phase than what I ever had with the real live rock. The most valuable thing I take away from this experience with rock is that it's much easier to start a new tank with already seasoned rock. I don't have the patience to deal with the weird phases of dry rock. I never had cyano on other tanks.
This has been long winded so apologies!
TL/DR:
Dry rock is a slower, uglier process but does allow for cool aquascapes. If you can, try and seed it prior to display tank.
Some of the new tech is really cool and convenient, but it also has potential to massively inconvenience you or cause disasters. They are not set it and forget it.
You can have an amazing tank with minimal equipment. If you are a person that wants/needs quick results or a full reef earlier then stay away from SPS and stick to softies (not that there is anything wrong with that btw). Any downturn in SPS (and it will happen at some point) takes longer to correct than softies which is annoying.
The longer you are around the hobby the more in depth you plan each new tank. It's such a wonderfully satisfying journey filled with all the emotions of life.
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