Want to know if rock is suitable ☺️

[Picklepentagramsforjesus]

Hey y’all was going to put this in my diy fillter for my tank that has nothing in it as it is very porous I thought it would work well but I think it has some iron in it do you think it will affect my corals in the future if I get any thank you

 

[andrewey]

I've used similar stuff (red lava rock from home depot) on a test tank once. From the samples I tested, it leached a variety of metals. The composition of the rock is highly variable, so if you were really concerned, I would run an ICP test to see what metals or minerals you are leaching.

The real downside was that it never functioned well as a biological media. Although there are a variety of holes, it's not actually that porous compared with live rock. Very few organisms would colonize the rock and it took much longer to process ammonia than similar size/weight pieces from Fiji/Tonga. I don't know if that's due to a decreased surface area/weight ratio compared with live rock or an effect of the leaching, but either way, it wasn't an equivalent biological filter. If money was no object, live rock rubble would be preferable in this case. However, as this stuff usually only costs a fraction of live rock rubble, I would focus on whether or not your particular batch was leaching or not if that's a concern for your particular setup.

 

[Picklepentagramsforjesus]

I've used similar stuff (red lava rock from home depot) on a test tank once. From the samples I tested, it leached a variety of metals. The composition of the rock is highly variable, so if you were really concerned, I would run an ICP test to see what metals or minerals you are leaching.

The real downside was that it never functioned well as a biological media. Although there are a variety of holes, it's not actually that porous compared with live rock. Very few organisms would colonize the rock and it took much longer to process ammonia than similar size/weight pieces from Fiji/Tonga. I don't know if that's due to a decreased surface area/weight ratio compared with live rock or an effect of the leaching, but either way, it wasn't an equivalent biological filter. If money was no object, live rock rubble would be preferable in this case. However, as this stuff usually only costs a fraction of live rock rubble, I would focus on whether or not your particular batch was leaching or not if that's a concern for your particular setup.

I’ve taken your advice and am putting live rock into it instead