Why the trend to dry rock?

[Blumy]

Seems every “emergency”, algae issue and fish issue on here has a tank with a dry rock start up. Is it fear of pests? To me they can be managed and even eliminated with patience. The benefits of live rock far outweigh them in my humble opinion. I started mine with 7 year old rock from a sump from a guy who was tearing down. Had vermitid snails and aptasia as well as tons of sponges and a few mushrooms. Well, a year later after treating the aptasia with aptasia-x, none to be found. Added a bunch of bumblebee snail, vermitids gone. Fully established ecosystem that has been growing SPS since the second month. Not to start a war but why deal with all the issues dry rock presents?

 

[Billldg]

Seems every “emergency”, algae issue and fish issue on here has a tank with a dry rock start up. Is it fear of pests? To me they can be managed and even eliminated with patience. The benefits of live rock far outweigh them in my humble opinion. I started mine with 7 year old rock from a sump from a guy who was tearing down. Had vermitid snails and aptasia as well as tons of sponges and a few mushrooms. Well, a year later after treating the aptasia with aptasia-x, none to be found. Added a bunch of bumblebee snail, vermitids gone. Fully established ecosystem that has been growing SPS since the second month. Not to start a war but why deal with all the issues dry rock presents?

I fell part of it has to do with the fear of adding unwanted pest, but, It also has to do with the look reefers want.

 

[lapin]

I think its a few things:
Live Rock is more expensive.
Dry rock is easier to get.
Dry rock is easy to sculpture outside of a tank.

 

[NickSc]

Eco friendly.

 

[James M]

Way cheaper to use dry rock

 

[lapin]

I want to add one more thing
The emergency algae issue is not really an issue. People see the pure white rock get covered with stuff and panic. Oh no Mr Bill...........

 

[Blumy]

Eco friendly.

Not necessarily. My LFS has a huge acrylic thing that looks like it may have frag tank at one time. They added dry rock to it and let it ride. Most of the pieces in there over a year old or more. Yeah, it costs more but you get a nice jumpstart with it.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

for me it was the cost, I decided to save $100. If I had to do it again I would have spent the $100. Lesson learned.

 

[MaxTremors]

I want to add one more thing
The emergency algae issue is not really an issue. People see the pure white rock get covered with stuff and panic. Oh no Mr Bill...........

Yeah, it takes time for dry rock to get colonized by more desirable algae/organisms, but I’m almost 8 months into my curren tank and the dry rock I used is covered in GHA and the live rock I used to seed the dry rock (around 25%) is completely clean and covered in coralline. I’ve also had horrible issues with my nutrients in this tank than I’ve never encountered in any tank I’ve set up using only live rock (and I’ve set up probably close to 20 tanks over the years). I don’t know if it’s a lack of denitrifying bacteria, if it’s lacking nitrates, or what, but despite having just two fish that I feed very sparingly once a day, my nitrates were consistently 80+ for months (even doing 1-2 50% water changes a week). Just in the last couple months I started carbon dosing and added some macroalgae and they’re finally coming down (consistently around 20ppm now).

My point is that dry rock sucks and I will never use it again (this was my first time using it). Yes, it’s better for the environment, is sometimes cheaper (though recently found out one lfs near me sells live rock from tank breakdowns for $1 a lb, because they ‘can’t in good conscience sell live rock that potentially has hitchhikers’, which to me is insane, that is part of the appeal) and you can make really unnatural looking aquascapes, but the lack of biodiversity and microfauna far outweighs any of the positives, IMO.

 

[burningmime]

I started with dry rock since I wanted to do an NSA. I ended up not doing the NSA.

 

[lapin]

I have about 900 lbs of dry marco rock in my 600G. I never had an algae issue. Sure I had bubble algae, hair, bryopsis and cyano but never in amount that effected anything. Still some hangs out but its food for the critters

 

[RobertTheNurse]

I started with dry rock. Almost 2 years in and have no pests and an establishing ecosystem. I think what people lack in this hobby is patience. Js

 

[Jeffcb]

Eco friendly.

I beleave all of the live rock comercialy collected in the US, gulf and atlantic is farmed from government leases offshore.

 

[Garf]

I did the live rock avalanche wall years ago. Decided to cement my rocks together this time. With a smaller tank the rocks being kept away from the glass is good.

 

[Blumy]

These mushrooms are one of the hitchhikers. Was a single small button at first.

 

[Catnip885]

I started with dry rock because I didn't want to deal with bristle worms. I didnt really have a hard time with mine and all is doing well. I had mostly green algae which a good cuc kept under control. I only had a tiny amount of hair algae which I just plucked off the rock. My biggest battle has been with some cyano which I just upped water changes and did daily cleanings until under control. I did add bacteria starter, purple and pink up and seeded with a ton of copepods. I would say it was worth it now that I don't have to worry about the unwanted pests.

 

[Jekyl]

Fear is the simple answer. This board is riddled with new hobbyists looking for information getting started. The general consensus is that saltwater tanks are difficult. People come in looking for the easiest to manage route. Couple that with all of the posts saying how bad hitchhikers are and you get your answer. I started with mostly dry rock. I did however add live rock from multiple sources. Never had a hitchhiker that was some major problem. Next tank will all be KP or gulf rock.

 

[hart24601]

I have been using dry or ceramic rock only since 2013 or so, I vastly prefer it after fighting various pests with ocean live rock. Some pests were worse than others, and some people enjoy the various life on the rocks they get, which is cool, although a lot dies off.

Combined with the cost advantage of dry rock which helps breaking it and sculpting caves or negative space, it’s a clear advantage for some. Of course others still prefer live ocean rock which is fine as well.

I think a lot of folk look back at the days of live rock with some rose colored glasses not remembering issues everyone has with a new tank although dry does take a bit longer unless one counts the curing of live rock for the die off, in that case dry rock can in some cases support life as fast or faster depending on the quality.

 

[MaxTremors]

I know some will disagree, but a reef tank isn’t a reef tank without real live rock (or at least dry rock seeded with some live rock), with out its a saltwater fishtank or a coral display. For me the microfauna and biodiversity that comes with live rock is half the appeal of having a saltwater aquarium, I just can’t wrap my head around peoples’ irrational fear of things like bristleworms or vermetids. In my decades in this hobby, I’ve yet to have a pest from live rock that wasn’t manageable (I’ve purchased probably 1000lbs of live rock from various sources over the years, and every single pest I’ve had that did damage to any of my corals came from frags/colonies and not live rock). I gave dry rock a chance with my latest tank, but I’ll never do it again, it’s just not for me

 

[hart24601]

I will say it’s a good thing we have options in the hobby. Few pics of my bare bottom dry rock tank from 2014 before I got sick at that time and took it down. Some might not like this tank at all, maybe say it’s not a reef tank, but I enjoyed it a lot.