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

[LeBon]

I started my tank with dry rock and have replaced most of it with synthetic dry rock. I have seen plenty of tanks over the years that had ZERO live rock in them and they looked amazing. I just don't believe it is necessary anymore.

Ifusing something like ceramic then isuppose its arguable that you can use that instead..but whichever way its dressed up it isnt as efficient andits 'trying'to replicate the real rock.makes sense to use the real thing unless such big differences in price that it stops people doing it properly

 

[boacvh]

Yes my views changed. I saw @Roberto Denadai tank thread recently and pretty much decided it really doesn't matter. Use live or not you can be very successful

 

[ReefRxSWFL]

Bacteria grows on everything. The glass, the pumps, the plumbing and yes. The corals. I have a system with 3x 60 gallon tanks. Corals, 12 fish , and NO ROCK.

You need a surface for bacteria to grow on. Doesnt matter if its live tock, dry rock or a pile of lego’s.

 

[tharbin]

Its only manufactured if it 'isnt'rock, otherwise its rock,it kinda makes itself lol

If it's ground up and then bound together in 'pleasing' shapes, it is manufactured no matter what the 'ingredients' are.

 

[LeBon]

If it's ground up and then bound together in 'pleasing' shapes, it is manufactured no matter what the 'ingredients' are.

ahh lol good point,bu then what the heck would be the point of replacing therock that already existed and'hint that its better

 

[Screwgunner]

IMO Live rock is totally unnecessary and actually could make your journey into Reefing harder.
Who knows what's coming in with live rock. I've split porous rock by driving chisels through almost microscopic fissures in stone to break it in half almost like a geode, and found flatworms in basically the middle of the rock, in cavities that would be less than paper thin.
With artificial dry rock your tank almost becomes a sterile laboratory. Be that as it may, I understand people are die hard over their diverse biomes although you can still get to that point with artificial rock by purchasing coral attached to rock. You don't necessarily have to buy live-rock. Just buy coral and the diversity will come. Although I always dip, even the rock I get with coral. I'm not taking any chances, to me not dipping is like spinning a revolver, putting it to your head and pulling the trigger, except in this scenario you have no idea how many bullets are in the gun. There could be none, it could be fully loaded.

+1

 

[LeBon]

comparing the surface area of glass and pumps against highly porous rock? its a non event. Sure, if you literally have no bioload then fine. dont need much/many nitrifiers but if you increase your bioload. i.e your fish grow then its gonna hit its maximum capability. Those with live rock. i.e 99% of successful systems also have the glass and pumps surface on top of the hundred miles of aragonite type rock surface area

 

[Reef Altitude]

When I started in the early 2000's we had fully mature live rock from the LFS. Our tank never cycled and there was never any kind of alae outbreaks. We also had so many kind of critters come out of the rocks which was really neat to see. It felt like a real chunk of ocean in our house. I assume it covered for inexperience because it is so effective.

Starting again this year, we used carib sea rock and live sand and again had almost no "cycle" in that ammonia did not spike to a noticeable level. We also have taken it VERY slow adding fish and other nutrient sources. 3 weeks in we added a 1 inch clown gobby and then at 5 weeks added (2) .75 inch clowns. Never had to much of an algae problem but experience and being patient deserves the credit this time around.

The dry rock is dense and very solid compared to the real stuff. We have been adding cured rubble that is epoxied together from the LFS in small amounts to create the porous areas and habitats for the fish to live in.

 

[MiniCoco]

Over the years I researched and tried to prepare myself for the responsibilities of caring for my micro-environment and all the pets. Thirty to forty years ago live rock was basically all that was known and used. Dealing with pests was simply accepted as part of the game of keeping a saltwater tank. Trickle filtration was the newest concept in the 80's. With better filtration and concepts such as sumps with refugiums, the hobby truly began challenging itself to question and resolve such issues as pests and diseases that were once simply accepted. Live rock has always been beneficial from the standpoint of biome and ease of cycling but has been under scrutiny with the introduction of available bacteria to cycle and I believe that the best option is to set a tank up with mostly dry rock and a small portion of live rock and sand. So personally, I have gone from all live rock to no live rock to bare bottom to dry rock and substrate to mostly dry rock, a few key live rock pieces and dry sand with a bag or two of live sand.

 

[las]

There is absolutely nothing like a tank with 1lb per gallon of rea,l fresh, cured live rock. If it has spent only a few days out of the ocean you will be floored after 6 months. Until you have done this yourself, you won't understand. There is a universe of stuff going on in your tank that a piece of man made rock can never do. Don't comment until you try it is all I can say to you. And, i hope you get the chance to see it for yourself.

 

[las]

 

[Big Smelly fish]

There is absolutely nothing like a tank with 1lb per gallon of rea,l fresh, cured live rock. If it has spent only a few days out of the ocean you will be floored after 6 months. Until you have done this yourself, you won't understand. There is a universe of stuff going on in your tank that a piece of man made rock can never do. Don't comment until you try it is all I can say to you. And, i hope you get the chance to see it for yourself.

That’s the truth, I would venture to say that most hobbyist in the last 5 to 10 years haven’t started a tank with live rock. JMO,
Also not talking about rock from friends or fish store that just been curing in a tank for months. Not the same.

 

[CoralB]

Live rock is like a box of Christmas cookies , you never know what your going to get . lol !!! bet you thought I was going to say chocolate . Kidding aside I started many years ago and found that for me new rock that I can develop myself is way safer for me . I had many issues over the years with unwanted hitchhikers from live rock that now a days the time and process to mature new rock is worth it , I will however will add a few pieces of rock from another tank of mine to salt a new start up with the new rock . I think it comes down to whether your a person who likes surprises or like me not so much . It’s all good

 

[jake royston]

There is absolutely nothing like a tank with 1lb per gallon of rea,l fresh, cured live rock. If it has spent only a few days out of the ocean you will be floored after 6 months. Until you have done this yourself, you won't understand. There is a universe of stuff going on in your tank that a piece of man made rock can never do. Don't comment until you try it is all I can say to you. And, i hope you get the chance to see it for yourself.

TL,DR; I was converted to a forever customer of maricultured live rock, after being plagued with nothing but issues and loss of life, money, and patience over my first year and a half.

After trying live rock, im more excited than ever! Allow me to share...

Started off my tank with 100% dry rock, caribsea life rock shapes to be exact. Tank cycled quickly, added a pair of clowns, and slowly added a few more fish. Added a couple corals here and there, maintained good parameters. Fish were healthy and happy. Corals were too, for about a week, maybe three. They would slowly loose color, PE, then just wither away. I was stumped. Then came dinos, which i eventually beat out. Then tank cleared up, and tried all different types of coral, Softies, LPS, SPS. They'd last two-three months at best, even the "you cant kill xenia if you tried" didnt last. Fast forward to the year mark. Ive beat dino (i now know i had Ostreopsis) a second time. Got rid of those and then came the green plague, turf algae (red and green), cyano, and the dreaded red turf algae, like an ungodly amount of it. I tried everything under the sun, bacteria, blackouts, nutrient reductions, algaecides, and every piece of equipment i could buy. Noting i did made any difference. This went on for about 5 months.

Fast forward to about two to three weeks ago, i was referred to KPaquatics to purchase some live rock to seed the system with good biodiversity. Ordered 15lbs of the starter live rock. I was in love as soon as opened the box. inspected carefully, removed two mantis shrimp, a pistol shrimp, a few worms, and a bunch of crabs. Dipped the rock in some salt water to flush out anything i missed. Replaced some of my algae infested rock with the new live rock. Over the last two weeks ive noticed the tank turning around. Algae is dying off, and corals are looking better every day. So i ended up ordering some of their base rock, and another 15lbs of live rock. second batch arrived and replaced some of the old rock this morning. Ill be placing some in the sump for a few weeks before replacing the rest of my painted cement rock over the next month or two as per my savior's suggestion. I could not be happier with the way the rock looks, and what it is doing for my system.

Maybe it is user error, maybe im not doing it right, but my experience with dry rock has not been a pleasant one. Everyone has different experiences, but for me personally, I am a firm believer in live rock. Do whatever works for your system, no two are the same.

 

[guily yalai]

My views haven't changed years that live rock is the unique role of reef whatever I keep fish or not.

 

[Thrashed]

I've been in and outof the hobby for about 20 years now and the biggest thing I've seen change is how much glue is being put into tanks. When I first started you didn't get the joy of if your scape looked good, it was however it was most secure. You could throw a little glue on it to hold it in place. Even gluing frags down now instead of a dab of super glue I see people putting whole bottles on a single frag plug to make it stay where they want it. Rock has always been around and I've always stayed true to as close to 1 pound per gallon as my fish will allow, but the amount of stuff being added with the rocks now a days blows my mind

 

[uhgster1]

I will never start a new tank without live rock again. That said, the amount of live rock is the cinch. I’ve restarted 6 tanks now and I use a 70/30 ratio of dry rock and live rock. I aquascape with the dry rock, leaving pre-planned locations for the live rock and I’m done. Last tank I setup, a 13.5 gallon fluval didn’t even cycle. The dry rock was was dark in 3 weeks to the point that you couldn’t tell which was the live rock I started with. And I’m talking about white marco rock. I got the live rock from my established aquariums and replaced those with white Marco also. I think the most important thing is to have a "seed" source of bacteria.

 

[lefkonj]

But you can source bacteria from any number of sources. Bottled products, filter media from an established tank, etc etc. Live rock is not the only way to do this.

 

[Screwgunner]

I went bare bottom with dry rock . 13 months latter my uglys are over i hope! and my rock is taking on coraline algea very fast now.

 

[las]

If you buy live rock because of the bacteria strains it has, you aren’t understanding the live rocks purpose.