Ngl I'm kinda in the live rock boat now however in an unorthodox way, when i set up my latest tank i just grabbed a piece of rock from one of my customers tanks who had been established for 5 plus years. he had started his tank with real live rock from the eastern states (aka great barrier reef) mixed with dry rock.
The piece he had given me was a piece of his established "dry rock"
all i did was make my scape with dry rock and then add the piece of live rock to the scape and instantly added my fish from a prior tank and my mate gave me the remnants of a bottle of that polyp lab bacteria which i dosed like once, (still doubt it did much) skipped the cycle due to the piece of live rock being already established and i can prove that the tank had skipped the cycle as i did weekly tests using a spin touch machine at work and Salifert tests almost daily. keep in mind i was skimming since day one too.
Tanks been running for about a year and abit, only just started adding corals again few months ago after i removed this damm porcupine puffer i was holding for a mate who ended up wrecking 90% of my euphilya/fimbrophilya population and also due to finishing school and work opening up. i had run into a minor dino and cyano problem (entirely my fault due to introducing it from a majorly infected tanks coral) which was fixed by cranking up the flow and not doing a water change for a couple weeks, but all in all tanks very stable now grows Acros nicely.
but here is the crazy part...
The customer who i had gotten the piece of rock from had used majority live rock and his tank, he had told me had many pests (including algaes and parasites/unwanted inverts) over the 5 years it was running introduced from the live rock but, but he had gotten rid of almost all of them.... except aptasia at the point where he gave me the piece of rock....
still to this date until now my tank has been entirely pest free, no aptasia at all, no pest algae's, no flatworms or parasites. of course there are bristle worms which in my opinion are beneficial. i've never dosed copepods or amphipods and i have a abundant supply, this is with the tank being bare bottom with no refugium too.
I basically had all the benefits of live rock without any of the negatives.
Oh yeah and i also don't even keep the piece of live established rock i started out with in my DT anymore it has just been in my sump for the past 6 months and everything's alright still.
I firmly believe of the benefits from microbiome diversity of live rock, but is it any better than established rock from a stable mature system? Or even is it any better than mixing a piece of live/established rock/media with dry rock?
The piece he had given me was a piece of his established "dry rock"
all i did was make my scape with dry rock and then add the piece of live rock to the scape and instantly added my fish from a prior tank and my mate gave me the remnants of a bottle of that polyp lab bacteria which i dosed like once, (still doubt it did much) skipped the cycle due to the piece of live rock being already established and i can prove that the tank had skipped the cycle as i did weekly tests using a spin touch machine at work and Salifert tests almost daily. keep in mind i was skimming since day one too.
Tanks been running for about a year and abit, only just started adding corals again few months ago after i removed this damm porcupine puffer i was holding for a mate who ended up wrecking 90% of my euphilya/fimbrophilya population and also due to finishing school and work opening up. i had run into a minor dino and cyano problem (entirely my fault due to introducing it from a majorly infected tanks coral) which was fixed by cranking up the flow and not doing a water change for a couple weeks, but all in all tanks very stable now grows Acros nicely.
but here is the crazy part...
The customer who i had gotten the piece of rock from had used majority live rock and his tank, he had told me had many pests (including algaes and parasites/unwanted inverts) over the 5 years it was running introduced from the live rock but, but he had gotten rid of almost all of them.... except aptasia at the point where he gave me the piece of rock....
still to this date until now my tank has been entirely pest free, no aptasia at all, no pest algae's, no flatworms or parasites. of course there are bristle worms which in my opinion are beneficial. i've never dosed copepods or amphipods and i have a abundant supply, this is with the tank being bare bottom with no refugium too.
I basically had all the benefits of live rock without any of the negatives.
Oh yeah and i also don't even keep the piece of live established rock i started out with in my DT anymore it has just been in my sump for the past 6 months and everything's alright still.
I firmly believe of the benefits from microbiome diversity of live rock, but is it any better than established rock from a stable mature system? Or even is it any better than mixing a piece of live/established rock/media with dry rock?