Think I Was Wrong…It HAS TO Be Live Rock

[CoastalTownLayabout]

Live rock is great but it’s not a silver bullet for algae issues. Plenty of reefers struggled with algae issues prior to dry rock.

The old problem algae forum in Reef Central was hardly a ghost town with a ball of chaeto tumbling down the Main Street.

 

[LilElroyJetson]

Live rock is great but it’s not a silver bullet for algae issues. Plenty of reefers struggled with algae issues prior to dry rock.

The old problem algae forum in Reef Central was hardly a ghost town with a ball of chaeto tumbling down the Main Street.

Agreed, and remember that (ahh chaeto). Definitely no silver bullet.

 

[CoralB]

Dry rock isn’t as bad as some say . Either way is fine . But their are negative issues with both ways as well as they both have their positives . I personally over the years have always started with rock from my existing tank put in the sump of the new tank and put dry rock in the main tank . It just works the best for me .

 

[thedon986]

I will never start another aquarium without mature, live rock. My last aquarium had amphidinium dinos for 17 months starting one month after setup and nothing I did could make a real impact. My current aquarium is three weeks old since my second shipment of maricultured rock and sand and I’m very happy. Last week I had cyano on my rocks and two small patches of dinos flare up on my sand. I did nothing but make sure nitrate and phosphate were in good levels and this week both have receded.

I feel like there are two paths that those can take when starting with dry rock: those fortunate enough to survive long enough to build a biome robust enough to keep dinos at bay and those who have dinos overtake their system never to really recover.

To me, paying 3x as much as I would have for dry rock to be, what, 5 years ahead of starting from sterile is worth it to me. Even a year is a long time in reefing, we all know that.

 

[BaliReefBox]

Just got back from a local LFS...rows and rows of tanks full of local live rock at about 35 cents a piece... they use it for the filtering of their systems and you can buy it from them

 

[fish farmer]

Live rock is great but it’s not a silver bullet for algae issues. Plenty of reefers struggled with algae issues prior to dry rock.

The old problem algae forum in Reef Central was hardly a ghost town with a ball of chaeto tumbling down the Main Street.

That's my thought when it comes to these live/dry debates.....you can still have algae issues, GHA, cyano down the line....have to keep up with husbandry.

My first tank was set up with half raw uncured Fiji and half dry base tufa rock/coral skeletons. I was adding soft corals in three months. I still remember gha early on....had a tang take care of it.

My second experience was with 30 lbs of coralline rock from Florida, moist shipped, cured in vat. My upgraded 55 which had the established Fiji, new Florida rock and new sand had the worst red macro algae problem staring out. Most of the other macros in the tank were taken care of by the dozen baby urchins that came on the rock, but they wouldn't touch this one type which fragmented and grew everywhere.

 

[PeterErc]

You All dry rock, seeded with coralline scrapings. Next time if I ever do set up a new one, will be no coralline. Thinking pulverized live rock with outer edges scraped off. But yes, some sort of established bacteria to colonize.
Some of that magical snake oil in the fancy box took the tank out, nothing to do with the rock. I wonder how many people f’d the dry rock tank up and blame it on the rock? All was good with lime water in ATO, NSW, and the big three as needed. Oh, and I mixed vinegar in with the kalkwasser
02/15

06/15

07/15

03/16

08/16

 

[Lebowski_]

I’m really thankful I don’t have my tank up and running yet, although I have had the dry rock cooking for a couple weeks already. Somebody will be getting a free donation. A lucky epiphany right in time. KP Aquatics will be getting an order from me pretty soon here!

Why not just mix some mature rock with your cooked dry rock?

 

[Lebowski_]

Just got back from a local LFS...rows and rows of tanks full of local live rock at about 35 cents a piece... they use it for the filtering of their systems and you can buy it from them

Almost impossible to find this in Canada now. All 3 of my LFS’s stopped importing rock and most their sumps are full of biobricks now which are easier to clean but still manage filtration.

Best bet to get the real stuff is from someone shutting down their tank, but that’s a game of Russian roulette in itself. People usually don’t just shut down a healthy tank…

 

[PeterErc]

one more thing to think about.
When clean up crew is added, snails, hermits etc.
Then coral, especially ones with some sort of substrate attached.
Fish, bottled hee bie jee bies ….and so on..
Does that count towards the biological?

 

[fish farmer]

one more thing to think about.
When clean up crew is added, snails, hermits etc.
Then coral, especially ones with some sort of substrate attached.
Fish, bottled hee bie jee bies ….and so on..
Does that count towards the biological?

If something crawls off it that wasn't originally in the tank...yes.

 

[X-37B]

After 30+ years of live rock a 50/50 blend is the best of both worlds, imo.

Was at the lfs a few weeks ago and a person brought in 150lbs of old dead unused live rock. A few pieces felt like balsa wood weight wise.
I got a few nice pieces.
I always look for tank breakdown rock. When I find it if its covered in unwanted items I just put it in some bleached water and when done I put it in my sump. 6+ months later it looks great without the unwanteds.

I have never started a tank with all dead so I only know the issues others habe had with all dead rock.

 

[LilElroyJetson]

Why not just mix some mature rock with your cooked dry rock?

For my personal situation I don’t need very much rock, I’m going for a very minimalist scape (don’t have room in the sump nor want it in there either), and don’t want any of the dry rock in there if there’s potential it still has it’s severe end of the issues, even if paired with real ocean live rock.

 

[1ocean]

You All dry rock, seeded with coralline scrapings. Next time if I ever do set up a new one, will be no coralline. Thinking pulverized live rock with outer edges scraped off. But yes, some sort of established bacteria to colonize.
Some of that magical snake oil in the fancy box took the tank out, nothing to do with the rock. I wonder how many people f’d the dry rock tank up and blame it on the rock? All was good with lime water in ATO, NSW, and the big three as needed. Oh, and I mixed vinegar in with the kalkwasser
02/15

06/15

07/15

03/16

08/16

awesome job!!!!

 

[cilyjr]

I'm in the 50/50 camp.
I've gotten a few pieces of live from a few local club members.
Anything I get dry always gets an acid bath. Since starting that routine I haven't gotten any serious algae (maiden hair, bryopsis)

Diatom blooms seem like a hard one to avoid. My anecdotal experience has been limiting water changes in the first few months before moving on to small weekly changes. My belief is certain trace elements that deplete quickly help feed these blooms. Limiting water changes at the onset keeps diatom blooms smaller. I suppose this is a debate for a different thread.

 

[WillpoleReefers]

I went down to the LFS shop today to get some rock to start my sump running. Tank is not built yet, but the sump is two compartments including a Jaubert plenum, water volume is about 190 litres so … makes sense t start it running for 2-3 months and then hook it up to the future 1000 litre tank, which will get a head start when it goes live. Room for 3 good sized pieces of live rock in the rear plenum compartment, suspended over the substrate. Front part will get some hardy fish and some critters in the coming weeks, will move them to the tank when it’s done. Anyway I wanted two lumps of Marco and a good sized real live piece of rock , no rush to cycle and I am using a mixed rock strategy. The tank will get some more real rock in addition to aquascaping in Marco. Anyway to cut a long story short you would think I had sworn or something similar when I asked for a lump of real rock. This dogma that you can’t put real rock in a new tank has really taken hold. Made me feel like an old aquarist indeed ( I am). I told the guy I’d seen almost every imaginable pest and that I was daring to use the live piece in full acceptance of the risks. We seem to be in legal disclaimer territory these days about something we used to do routinely. It feels like madness to me. Anyway my pet rock is sitting happy in the back compartment and being fed some ammonia for now. He didn’t like that either.

Steve

 

[fish farmer]

I went down to the LFS shop today to get some rock to start my sump running. Tank is not built yet, but the sump is two compartments including a Jaubert plenum, water volume is about 190 litres so … makes sense t start it running for 2-3 months and then hook it up to the future 1000 litre tank, which will get a head start when it goes live. Room for 3 good sized pieces of live rock in the rear plenum compartment, suspended over the substrate. Front part will get some hardy fish and some critters in the coming weeks, will move them to the tank when it’s done. Anyway I wanted two lumps of Marco and a good sized real live piece of rock , no rush to cycle and I am using a mixed rock strategy. The tank will get some more real rock in addition to aquascaping in Marco. Anyway to cut a long story short you would think I had sworn or something similar when I asked for a lump of real rock. This dogma that you can’t put real rock in a new tank has really taken hold. Made me feel like an old aquarist indeed ( I am). I told the guy I’d seen almost every imaginable pest and that I was daring to use the live piece in full acceptance of the risks. We seem to be in legal disclaimer territory these days about something we used to do routinely. It feels like madness to me. Anyway my pet rock is sitting happy in the back compartment and being fed some ammonia for now. He didn’t like that either.

Steve

Whoa....jaubert plenum....so 20th century.

I got a bucket of bioballs circa 1991 that are collecting dust...

 

[findingAqua]

I am still learning, but went into marine without keeping any fish before, got told its very hard etc.. Got lucky and by chance bought my live rock off a guy who had shut down a 30 year old system, still had it kept in heated salt water and only taken out for the 15 minute drive home. I bought 10kg off him and never had any spikes, never really had any issues with my tests at all, always been very stable. He said it was taken back from when they took it straight from the ocean.

Spoke to many people who had a real hard time with spikes and water quality setting up, so makes me think this is why we found it so easy relatively

 

[WillpoleReefers]

Whoa....jaubert plenum....so 20th century.

I got a bucket of bioballs circa 1991 that are collecting dust...

Sad that I chucked my home made trickle tower . Was part of a good reef that one

Steve

 

[djf91]

I went down to the LFS shop today to get some rock to start my sump running. Tank is not built yet, but the sump is two compartments including a Jaubert plenum, water volume is about 190 litres so … makes sense t start it running for 2-3 months and then hook it up to the future 1000 litre tank, which will get a head start when it goes live. Room for 3 good sized pieces of live rock in the rear plenum compartment, suspended over the substrate. Front part will get some hardy fish and some critters in the coming weeks, will move them to the tank when it’s done. Anyway I wanted two lumps of Marco and a good sized real live piece of rock , no rush to cycle and I am using a mixed rock strategy. The tank will get some more real rock in addition to aquascaping in Marco. Anyway to cut a long story short you would think I had sworn or something similar when I asked for a lump of real rock. This dogma that you can’t put real rock in a new tank has really taken hold. Made me feel like an old aquarist indeed ( I am). I told the guy I’d seen almost every imaginable pest and that I was daring to use the live piece in full acceptance of the risks. We seem to be in legal disclaimer territory these days about something we used to do routinely. It feels like madness to me. Anyway my pet rock is sitting happy in the back compartment and being fed some ammonia for now. He didn’t like that either.

Steve

Ridiculous what things have become isn’t it?