What's your view on Live Rock in 2022? What's changed or hasn't changed?

[JimmyV]

My view has changed through the years. Let's face it the reefs are slowly deteriorating it seams, the good rock that we used to get is diminishing . Though the benificial life that comes on real live rock is outstanding. But in order to preserve the reefs we need to look to ancient dry reef rock. With proper seeding of all that good life , the dry becomes live.

 

[trsmith18]

used dry rock and less of it than before. Loved live rock but the availability, sustainability and flexibility of aquascaping outside the tank drove it home.

I just dose pods, and various bacteria products to get the biodiversity I need. Not nature, but close

 

[Wasabiroot]

My wife is hilarious with our gulf rock. I find her in fish room often after lights out with her little head lamp on checking things out. 3yrs later she's still like a little kid and amazed at all the life on the rock

That's a keeper

 

[LRT]

That's a keeper

Its definetely cheaper ohhhhhh
JK yeah she's pretty awesome and I do get a kick out of her on the little stool, tongs in hand with head lamp on. She's always finding something to get excited about hahahaha

 

[ReefGeezer]

Hey 1975, this is 1985. Still have the UG filter, but now have some of this new rad stuff on top of it called live rock. It will sprout all kinds of gnarly life in my tank. It has this bodacious purple and red crusty stuff as well as little colonies of like corals of something on it. Smelled bad when I got it though. I almost ralphed!

Hallo! 1995 calling. We here in Berlin are using a method that relies on live rock and a new gadget called a protein skimmer. No more UG filters. Just a lot of rock. It does all the nitrification/denitrification. We're buying Fiji, Marshall Islands, and Tonga rock shipped direct from the indio-pacific area by the ton. There is enough rock on their reef to last forever. auf Wiedersehen!

 

[Ricox]

I just use caribsea life rock to cycle my reef tank and I have no regrets as it looks great from day 1 and I don't have to deal with any hitchhikers.

 

[bnord]

I didn't come up with this idea, but have modified it and use it with keys/gulf rock which I think does the job

I have a 2 buckets of 35 ppm salt one of 37 ppm and one of 40

As I unpack I use a lab squeeze bottle of 35 ppm to blow over the surface and into the holes of the baseball to softball size rock, to try to get the really dead stuff off, then drop and swish

then place and swish the rock in 35 and let it sit, and observe the bottom, then move and swish in the 37, observe, tweeze up any good guys, and drop in the fresh 35, the up to 40 for a brief swish to get that last mantid then back to 37 and back to fresh 35.

If you want pistols, serpents you'll find them and can put them whee you want them Have yet to have a mantid to gorilla (still don't know what they look like) in my display

I THINK this keeps the Coraline/bacteria in place

 

[Timfish]

Back in the 90's I thought it was beneficial and added some cool animals. Now after reading about the tiny percentage of microbial life than can be cultured (<5%) and how critical cryptic sponges are for processing DOC I'd say it's absolutely essential.

 

[lucyretz]

honestly theres pros and cons to both dry and live. if you want a mature set up quickly, youre gonna want to go for live rock but obviously its a risk when you think about what exactly could be in or on those rocks. dry rock is the "sterile" approach and obviously you eliminate the risks of introducing a potential future problem. HOWEVER, this in my opinion, is useless to do if you arent going to dip AND quarantine corals. dipping in my experience, only eliminates so much, you would need to qt the crap out of whatever you purchase to control the risks of pests.

so with all that in mind, i chose a mix of dry and live. as much as i hate the odd hitchhiker that isnt supposed to be there, i do enjoy the abundance of life that lives among these rocks and getting to really see how biodiverse our oceans really are.

 

[Etszoo]

Every tank is different obviously. Latest tank (6yrs old now) started with dry and partially seasoned rock. The cycle of this took a very long time. Long story short. I will go live rock if I had to start over. Happy reefing.

 

[Korkuc36]

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[Korkuc36]

Everytime I've started with dry rock, I had issues. First the brown algea, than the dinos and finally the red nasty. And while all that is happening I always battle keeping nitrates below 20. I've started with live rock twice and each time I had trouble giving my livestock the little bit of nitrates they need, because they are so low. Who cares, you may get some bristle worms but they are not the evil creatures they were once thought out to be. Pretty beneficial in my opinion. They keep the rock clear of detritus. And if you're one of the unluckys who get the mantis shrimp, just make a trap and catch and pass along to a different reefer who would take it. Just my 2 cents and experience.

 

[Coinzmans Reef]

1990-2010 Live rock, Tonga, Florida and Fiji only problem I ever had was a Mantis shrimp, yes he ate well $$$$
2020 Dry rock, yes a pain in the but first eight months but with some biodigest, pods and plankton I am happy. No bristle worms or Mantis shrimps to worry about.

 

[Mr Fishface]

Mine sure has. When I started I only used dry rock and did a very long cycle. As I went I learned that biodiversity was something I took for granted. My next tank will have rock shipped in that has sat in the ocean a bit. I'm quite excited to see all the life that comes in with it.

 

[LPS Bum]

I've been in the hobby for 20 years, so live rock (Fiji Premium to be exact) is all I've ever used. I have about 300 pounds of it between my 240 FOWLR and my 90 reef. Used to order it from Marine Depot, back in the day.

Never used dry rock, but I haven't heard too many great things about it. Dust, dinos, leaching phosphate, etc. But that's where the hobby has gone.

 

[minus9]

I understand your thoughts. My thoughts were that it would drive out most of the hitchhikers from the rock so that I can pick and choose which ones to keep. The rock isn't for the bacteria really but more so the critters and incrusting algae. Where I got the 10 minute number? It is just arbitrary. I could be completely wrong in my process. I am not ashamed of admitting that. I have started 4 tanks in my life and only done this process on two. How often does one really setup new tanks?

Gotcha, I would just use hyper salinity (40ppt+), this will ensure bacteria stays alive, but will bring out or kill most hitchhikers. You can also raise temp too, most things that you want should survive. Bad worms or crabs, shrimps can be trapped with a number of methods too. If you have patience, you can accomplish all of this in short order, especially compared to how long dry rock takes to establish itself.

 

[Joe's 220 Reef]

My views have changed. I used to be of the mindset of 1-2 lbs of live rock per gallon (actual live rock). I tried dry rock and had trouble for almost 2 years. I am back to live rock is a must have, even if it is from a previous tank, but you don’t need that much. I am guessing 1/4 lb for gallon seems right. You can mix with dry but I will never do all dry again nor will I do 1-2 lbs of live rock per gallon as well

 

[Kfactor]

if i could find it in canada i would have all live rock

 

[iannarelli]

Still waiting on the results of the Biome investigation @Bulk Reef Supply is conducting. The most recent update on facebook made it seem like live rock doesn't provide as diverse a biome as other options...

 

[OSFF]

I started my first tank almost 10 years ago with some Fiji live rock and was pretty successful with that tank even though I was a newbie. I started another tank years later with dry rock and I was never able to attain the same stability with corals mysteriously melting away, dinoflagellates, cyano, and other problems that I never had to deal with when I used real live rock. Learned my lesson and started my most recent tank with KP aquatics live rock which gave me the same instant stability and coral health that my first tank did. IMO the push for dry rock is one of the biggest mistakes in this hobby, especially for beginners as live rock is much more stable. I will never use dry rock again as I’d rather trap a pest than deal with never ending water chemistry issues.